Get better at working with Google Sheets! Join 50,000 readers to get an actionable tip in your inbox every Monday.
Sheets tip 249: New Smart Chips in Google Sheets
Hi Reader,
Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #249, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form!
My wife and I had a wonderful few days in a Cacapon State Park last week with our boys. We went swimming, hiking, and crayfish-catching in the natural springs that run through the nearby town of Berkeley Springs.
I hope your spring is full of joy!
_______
➜ Google Sheets Tip #249: New Smart Chips
Earlier this year, Google laid out its vision for the smart canvas layer in Workspace.
It's an enticing proposition that makes relevant information even more accessible within your Workspace apps. The general idea is that it'll help you stay in the flow of your work, and reduce the number of times you have to context switch.
In Sheets, we have five Smart Chips:
- People
- File
- Calendar event
- Place
- Finance
Smart Chips can be inserted by typing the @ symbol into a cell or through the menu: Insert > Smart chips
Let's see each smart chip in turn:
When you hover over the chips, you see additional information relating to that chip.
Either this will show you what you need to know, or provide a quick link you can click on to find out more.
Plus, when Smart chip data extraction is released (see the Sheet GIF halfway down this post for a demo) these features will become even more useful.
People
People chips make it super easy to interact with other users, for example, to book meetings, start a chat, or a Google Meet.
File
I use File chips all the time, not only because they look much better than a long URL in my Sheet, but also because they show me file metadata when I hover over them:
Calendar events
You can add calendar event chips into Sheets now, which makes it much easier to show events in project planning worksheets. People can click to the calendar invite for easy management.
Place
Place chips let you show location information directly in Sheets, which will be super handy for planning documents (e.g. compiling a list of cities for a travel itinerary).
Finance
Finance smart chips let you insert Google Finance entities such as stocks, mutual funds, and currencies directly into Sheets.
What are thoughts on these new smart chips? Do you use them?
_______
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to a friend who might enjoy it.
Have a great week!
Cheers,
Ben
Google Sheets Tips
Get better at working with Google Sheets! Join 50,000 readers to get an actionable tip in your inbox every Monday.
Brought to you by: Hi Reader, Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #356, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form! I’m delighted to have my friend Justin Keene of EdTech-Training sponsoring this week’s newsletter. His company teaches educators how to use the Canvas LMS through self-paced learning courses, but here’s the cool part: he built the entire training platform itself with Google Apps Script! By combining libraries, web apps, and APIs, Justin powers real-time progress...
Brought to you by: Hi Reader, After a few weeks break for the summer 🏖️, we're back with the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #355, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form! What's new? AI continues to dominate the tech headlines, with new features crammed into every corner of the internet, whether they’re needed or not. But beyond the hype, the tools are improving, and that includes in the spreadsheet domain. These days, when I need to create a complex formula, I often start with a...
Brought to you by: Hi Reader, Welcome to the Google Sheets Tips newsletter #354, your Monday morning espresso, in spreadsheet form! In last week's newsletter we compared wide and tall data, and what the pros and cons of each data "shape" were. Today, I want to show you how to move from one format to the other. How to transform tall data into wide data and vice versa. Going in one direction is easy. Going back, in the other direction, is less so. Find out which way round below! ➜ News I. It's...