Google updates spreadsheets on Drive with discussion function for comments

Google has updated spreadsheets on drive with the discussion function that is already available on documents and presentations.

Through the new feature, the familiar cells of a spreadsheet will be highlighted if there is a comment in there along with the expected data. When users hover over the cell, the full discussion appears for further reading.

As you might expect from a spreadsheet, there’s some calculation involved too. The total number of comments are tallied at the bottom of the screen on the sheet tab, so users can quickly see if something has more queries and might need attention sooner.  Hovering over the comment icon  at the bottom of the page will show all of the comments on that sheet.

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Any comments that were created in spreadsheets before today are still available and saved as “Notes”. These show up on a spreadsheet using a black triangle in the corner of a cell to point out the difference between them and new discussion-style comments.

Partick Donelan, the software engineer who put together the post on the Google blog regarding this new functionality says, “We hope discussions makes working in spreadsheets with others more fun and productive, and we look forward to making even more improvements to collaboration in Google Drive.”

Hopefully that really does mean fun and productive. Not everyone is a fan of spreadsheets and a discussion on each cell might make the going tough. At least with a way to talk about things, it might help to make sure the data is correct.

Image Credit: Yukop