Tag Archives: Google Sheets

New ways to discover and navigate comments in Google Sheets

What’s changing

Now in Google Sheets, you can:
  • Review comments and conversation threads in a sidebar.
  • Apply filters to find the most relevant comments for getting your work done when a document is highly collaborative.
  • Page through comment threads in a document in the comment overlay.


Use the new comments sidebar to see all the conversations happening in a spreadsheet. Quickly reply, resolve, or create new conversations in collaboration with your colleagues.



In highly collaborative spreadsheets, apply filters in the sidebar to find the most relevant feedback (for example, comment threads that need your response).


Take action directly in the sidebar when tasks are complete, or conversations have been resolved.


Use the new navigator to progress through comments in the spreadsheet.



Who’s impacted

End users


Why you’d use it

Collaborating with teammates is more important than ever, and comments are a powerful way to discuss and collaborate wherever you and your colleagues are, and whenever you’re working. By making it easier to review, respond to, and resolve comments in Sheets, it’s easier to collaborate to create more impactful data and analysis.


Additional details

With these new changes, you now have easy ways to see and navigate all comments in a spreadsheet by clicking:
  • The comment icon in the Appbar.
  • The "open all comments" item in the sheet tab.
  • The "open" from any comment anchored to a cell.
  • A new button in the comment overlay that allows you to page between comment threads in a document.

Getting started

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be ON for everyone.

Rollout pace

  • Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 16, 2021

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers.

Resources

New iOS Data Protection setting protects data sharing between Google Workspace and personal Google accounts

What’s changing 

We’re adding a new admin setting which restricts data and content sharing between Google Workspace accounts and personal Google accounts in Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides on iOS. 

When the data protection setting is enabled, users can only share or save content–such as files, emails, or copied & pasted content—within Workspace accounts. This will protect users from sharing a file with their personal Google accounts or saving a file to their personal Google Drive. 



Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important 

Google applications on iOS support multi-user logins, allowing users to access Gmail, Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides with their personal and Google Workspace accounts. Giving admins the ability to control how data is shared across user accounts helps minimize accidental data sharing. Together with the previously released copy and paste and drag and drop restrictions, these security measures help increase the security of your corporate data on iOS. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled at the OU and domain level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about applying settings for iOS devices. 

  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. When enabled by your admin, you will be able to securely share enterprise Google Workspace content between your Google Workspace apps. 

Rollout pace 

  • Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: This feature is available now for all users. 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Education Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

Present from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides directly to Google Meet

What’s changing 

As part of our mission to build the future of work, today we announced smart canvas — a new product experience that will make it easier for people to stay connected, focus their time and attention, and transform their ideas into impact. 


In the coming months, we’ll be announcing new features that will make collaboration a more flexible, interactive, and intelligent experience. Specifically for more collaboration flexibility, you can now present content from Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides directly to an active Google Meet call. 


As a result, you can present with fewer clicks, and then once you’re presenting, you can see your audience and your content at the same time back in the Meet tab. 



Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it’s important 

We hope this feature makes collaboration easier by bringing your team together in the places you’re already working, eliminating the need to switch between apps. By helping the conversation stay on track, people can more easily pull content into conversations, share ideas and solve problems together. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Insert smart chips for files and meetings, create checklists in Google Docs

What’s changing 

As part of our mission to build the future of work, today we announced smart canvas — a new product experience that will make it easier for people to stay connected, focus their time and attention, and transform their ideas into impact. 


In the coming months, we’ll be announcing new features and functionality to products like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. These new features will create a more flexible, interactive, and intelligent experience, enhancing the content and connections that fuel collaboration across Google Workspace. 


Beginning today, in Google Docs you can: 
  • Insert smart chips for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides files, other Google Drive files, and Calendar events 
  • Create checklists 
  • Insert links more easily with intelligent suggestions in the insert link dialog 

See below for more information. 

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it’s important 

In Google Docs, we’re adding new interactive building blocks to connect people, content, and events into one seamless experience: 


Smart chips are already available when you mention a person in a document, displaying additional information such as the person’s location, job title, and contact information. We’ve expanded this functionality to include the ability to insert smart chips for files and events. This makes it easy for your collaborators to quickly scan associated meetings and people, and preview linked documents all without context switching. 



Additionally, we’ve improved the insert link experience. You’ll now see intelligent suggestions for Drive files or headings and bookmarks within your document based on your highlighted text. 



You can also create checklists in Docs, making it easier to keep projects moving forward and track progress. 




Smart chips and Checklists are currently rolling out. Table templates, topic-voting tables, and the additional Checklist capabilities are coming soon.


Coming soon, you’ll be able to assign checklist action items to other people. Additionally, these checklists will appear in Google Tasks, making it easier for everyone to manage their part on a project’s To-Do list. We’ll provide an update on the Workspace Updates Blog when this becomes available. 

Additional details 

In the coming months, we plan to introduce more features like: 
  • Table templates to quickly insert various tables in Docs, such as topic-voting tables, where feedback can be seamlessly gathered in one place. 
  • Meeting note templates which will automatically import any relevant information from a Calendar meeting invite, including smart chips for attendees and files. 
  • Pageless format in Docs will allow you to remove the boundaries of a page to create an infinite surface to work on. 
  • Timeline view in Sheets that makes it easier and faster to track tasks by allowing you to organize your data by owner, category, campaign, or whichever attribute fits best. 

You can read more about these features on the Google Cloud Blog. Stay tuned to the Workspace Updates Blog, as we’ll provide updates here when these features become available. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin action required. 
  • End users: This feature will be available for all users. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using smart chips and checklists in Google Docs. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

More options for customizing a charts line and fill styling in Google Sheets

Quick Summary 

We’ve added more for line and fill customization options for series and series items. You can now modify: 
  •  Color 
  • Opacity 
  • Line dash styles 
  • Line thickness 
For column-shaped series, we’ve added the ability to add and style borders, a highly requested feature. 



Note: these new options are not available for pie charts, however the ability to change pie slice colors and add borders is already available. 

We hope these new options help you best display important data and create more impactful reports with Sheets. 

Getting started 


Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers

Resources 

More ways to work with and analyze BigQuery data using Connected Sheets

What’s changing 

We’re adding several new features that will give you more ways to work with, display, and organize your BigQuery data when using Connected Sheets. Specifically, the new abilities and improvements are: 
  • Column stats 
  • Filter by value 
  • Calculated fields for pivot tables 
  • Pivot table grouping 
  • Slicers 
See below for more details on these features. If you’re new to BigQuery and Connected Sheets, check out this video demo. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and End users 

Why you’d use it 

Column stats 
This new feature allows easy access to aggregated insights about the data in any column of your BigQuery table. These insights help you understand the shape of your data and include sum, average, median, unique count, max, min, list of most and least frequent values and distribution of the values in the column. 



Filter by value 
In addition to the ability to filter a column “by condition”, you can now filter a column “by value”. Connected Sheets will retrieve the list of values for any column that you can access for your analysis. Use the Help Center to learn more about filtering columns by value when using Connected Sheets. 



Calculated fields in pivot tables 
Calculated fields for pivot tables allow for custom aggregation of formulas in pivot table buckets. Use the Help Center to learn more about how to use calculated fields. 

Pivot table grouping 
You can now group numeric values from your source data into buckets of equal size in Connected Sheets pivot tables. This is useful when you’re working with a pivot table with numerous unique values—grouping can better narrow down your data by a minimum, maximum, and interval. Use the Help Center to learn more about using pivot table grouping in Google Sheets. 



Slicers for Connected Sheets 
You can also use a slicer to filter your Connected Sheets tables, charts, and pivot tables. A slicer is based on a column/field from the BigQuery data source. The slicer influences all the Connected Sheets charts, extracts and pivot tables in the same tab. Use the Help Center to learn more about using slicers with Connected Sheets. 

Additional details 

In the coming weeks, we will introduce improvements for scheduled refresh, allowing you to automate refresh at a specified frequency with more granular scheduling options. These options include: 
  • Hourly refreshes 
  • Specific start dates 
  • Frequency options such as every five days, every two months, etc. 



When this feature becomes available, we’ll provide an update on the Workspace Updates Blog. 

Getting started 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, and Education Plus customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers 

Resources 

Changes to Google Workspace storage policies timeline

What’s changing

We’re extending the previously announced timeframe for upcoming changes to the Google Workspace storage policy. The updated timeline is:

  • June 1, 2021: High-quality photos will count towards Drive quota beginning June 1, 2021. There is no change to this timeline.
  • February 1, 2022: Any newly created Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, or Jamboard files will count toward storage. Existing files within these products will not count toward storage, unless they’re modified on or after February 1, 2022. Read more in our Help Center.

Note that there are no changes to the previously announced dates for personal Google accounts.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users. Storage limits differ across Google Workspace and G Suite editions, but we estimate that the majority of users will not be affected by these changes. See “Getting Started” below for more information on determining storage usage across your organization.

Why it’s important

People are uploading more content than ever before—in fact, more than 4.3 million GB are added across Gmail, Drive, and Photos every day. These changes to our storage policy are necessary to provide our users with a great experience and to keep pace with the growing demand.



We recently announced changes to the pooled storage policy for Workspace for Education customers. As a part of these updates, to empower Google Workspace admins to adapt to this model and optimize their storage, we will provide new admin tools to identify and manage how storage is used and allocated before the policy goes into effect. We’ve decided to delay the count of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, or Jamboard files count toward storage quotas until that tooling is in place.

Getting started


Rollout pace

High-quality photos
Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, and Jamboard

Availability

  • These changes will apply to all customers with Google Workspace and G Suite licenses.

Resources

Quickly navigate to active cells and ranges with the new range name box in Google Sheets

Quick launch summary 

We’re adding a range name box, located to the left of the formula bar, to improve navigation in Google Sheets. Previously, active cells were only indicated by a blue outline and could be located by scrolling or using the arrow keys. Now, you can use the range name box to jump directly to coordinates and named ranges in a sheet. 

Additionally, this box provides a dropdown menu to easily access and manage to create new named ranges in the sheet. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. The new range name box can be found at the left of the formula bar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using named ranges in Sheets.  

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Quickly navigate to active cells and ranges with the new range name box in Google Sheets

Quick launch summary 

We’re adding a range name box, located to the left of the formula bar, to improve navigation in Google Sheets. Previously, active cells were only indicated by a blue outline and could be located by scrolling or using the arrow keys. Now, you can use the range name box to jump directly to coordinates and named ranges in a sheet. 

Additionally, this box provides a dropdown menu to easily access and manage to create new named ranges in the sheet. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature. The new range name box can be found at the left of the formula bar. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using named ranges in Sheets.  

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 
  • Available to users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources 

Open Office attachments from Gmail in Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides with one click

What’s changing

We’re making it easier to view, edit, and collaborate on Microsoft Office files sent and received in Gmail using Docs, Sheets, and Slides. With this launch, we’re adding: 
  • Open Office files in Docs, Sheets, or Slides with one click: When you send or receive email with an Office file attached, you’ll see an edit icon that will open the file directly in Docs, Sheets, or Slides while preserving the original file format. 
  • Easily reply to the email from within the file: Once the file is opened, you’ll have new options to respond to the email thread from the File menu in Docs, Sheets, or Slides. 

See images below. 


Who’s impacted 

End users 


Why it’s important 

This provides a fast and convenient way to view, edit, and collaborate on emailed Office files directly in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Previously, users would have to save a file to Drive before being able to use G Suite’s Office editing features. With this launch, they can open files more quickly and reply to email threads featuring Office files more easily. 


Getting started 


When you receive an Office file in Gmail, click the Edit icon to quickly open the file to view, edit, and collaborate. 

After opening an Office file from Gmail, you’ll see new options in the Docs, Sheets, or Slides File menu to reply with a file, or open the original message. 


Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to Google Workspace Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus, as well as G Suite Basic, Business, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers 
  • Not available to Google Workspace Essentials and Enterprise Essentials customers 

Resources