Getting Notified of Spreadsheet Changes

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated December 20, 2013)

6

When you are collaborating on a spreadsheet with others, it can be a great boon to get everyone's changes all in that single spreadsheet. When your collaborators are all over the country (or the world), it would be great to be notified whenever someone makes a change in the spreadsheet. That way you wouldn't waste time continually checking the spreadsheet to see if others have made changes recently.

Fortunately, Sheets does provide a way to get notifications when things change in a shared spreadsheet. Here's how to set up your own notifications:

  1. Log into Google Drive (drive.google.com).
  2. Open the spreadsheet for which you want notifications. (It must be a spreadsheet that is shared with others.)
  3. Choose Tools | Notifications. Sheets displays the Set Notification Rules dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    4. Figure 1. The Set Notification Rules dialog box.

  4. Using the controls in the dialog box, indicate what type of change notifications you want to see.
  5. Indicate at the bottom of the dialog box how quickly you want to be notified.
  6. Click Save. Sheets displays the Set Notification Rules dialog box, which shows an overview of how you are notified.
  7. Click Done.

Notifications can be set on a spreadsheet-by-spreadsheet basis, but (again) only for shared spreadsheets.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is four less than 5?

2014-01-15 09:39:48

Andy

Thanks for making the correction so promptly!

Google have introduced a new feature "Activity Stream" which makes it a bit easier to know when changes are made to documents: http://googledrive.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/a-new-activity-stream-in-drive-shows.html

It is worth considering for a drive tip!

2013-12-20 09:06:22

awyatt

Now corrected; it is about spreadsheet changes, not document changes.

-Allen

2013-12-20 08:59:03

awyatt

You are absolutely correct, Andy. I must have been half asleep when I wrote this one. I'll get it corrected.

-Allen

2013-12-19 23:10:44

Andy

Just a correction to my last post, there is no Notification option on the Tools menu in documents. To set comment notifications you go to comments in the top right corner, then click on Notifications.

2013-12-19 23:07:11

Andy

Your tip refers to "documents" but the screenshot is for a spreadsheet.

I don't think you can be notified of *document* changes, only if comments to a document are made. And there is no Tools menu in documents.

Notification of changes to shared documents is a feature I wish google would introduce!

2013-12-19 08:07:20

vinod

Nice tip. Very useful. Keep up the good work

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