Notifications for Google Sheets
Google Sheets has basic notification functionality built in but it’s very limited. You can be sent an email notifications when any change is made to your sheet either straight away or as a daily digest but you can’t specify the type of change that should trigger the notification.
This is where Check Sheet comes in, it allows you to create “checks” that will inspect your spreadsheet every time it changes and if your check matches it can send you notifications via Email, Slack or Microsoft Teams.
For example you could create a check that looks at the sum of your sales column and sends you an email when it reaches your target. It makes it easy to keep track of your goals, the progress of a project or whatever you can think of.
- Installing
- Getting Started
- Concepts
- Creating a Check
- Editing a Check
- Deleting a Check
- Check Conditions
- Types of Value
- Types of Notification
- Examples
- Limits
Installing
You can install Check Sheet for free from the Google Workspace Marketplace. Once you’ve done this Check Sheet will be available for use within all your Google Sheets, you can access it from the Add-ons menu.
Getting Started
To create a check you need to open Check Sheet from the Add-ons menu within one of your sheets, hover over Check Sheet in the drop down and click “Settings”.
You should then see the Check Sheet welcome screen pop up which will prompt you to create your first check. Click the “Add Check” button to create your first check.
Concepts
The key concept in Check Sheet is a “check”, you can create many checks and these checks will be evaluated each time your spreadsheet is updated to see what state they are. A check can be in one of two states, matched or unmatched. Whether a check matches is determined based on the conditions you have defined for that check. If a check is matched this may trigger a notification being sent.
Creating a Check
To create your first check open Check Sheet as described in Getting Started or if you’ve already created a check you’ll see a green “Add” button at the top of your list of checks.
You’ll then be presented with a blank form as shown below that allows you to enter the details of your check.
A check is made up of the following properties:
- Name: use this to describe what your check is for
- Sheet: use this to select which sheet you are checking.
- Range: use this to select the cell or range of cells you are checking, using A1 notation
- When: use this to set which set of the cells must match if you specified multiple in your range
- Is: use this to set the condition of your check
- Value: use this to set the value to match your condition against, it can be one of these types
- On: use this to set if you Get notifications each time your check matches or just the first time
- Send: use this to set the type of notification you want to send
- To: use this to set where you can want to notification to go
Editing a Check
To edit a check open the Check Sheet settings and you should see a list of your checks. Click the yellow “Edit” button on the check you want to edit and the check details will appear.
Deleting a Check
To delete a check open the Check Sheet settings and you should see a list of your checks. Click the yellow “Edit” button on the check you want to delete and then the red “Delete” button in the bottom right of the screen.
Check Conditions
Check Sheet allows you to create checks on your spreadsheet based on a variety of conditions. The conditions you can use depends upon the data in your spreadsheet that you are checking.
Numbers
For cell(s) containing numbers you can define checks to see if they are:
- Empty
- Not Empty
- Equal To
- Not Equal To
- Greater Than
- Greater Than Or Equal To
- Less Than
- Less Than Or Equal To
Text
For cell(s) containing text you can define checks to see if they are:
- Empty
- Not Empty
- Equal To
- Not Equal To
- Starts With
- Ends With
- Contains
- Does Not Contain
Dates
For cell(s) containg dates you can define checks to see if they are:
- Yesterday
- Today
- Tomorrow
Types of Value
Values can be one of three types:
Text
Any piece of text.
- Example: banana
- Example: multiple words
Number
Any integer or decimal.
- Example: 5
- Example: 9.99
Range
A reference to a a single cell or range of cells using A1 notation that is prefixed with an equals sign.
- Example: =A1
- Example: =C1:C10
Types of Notification
Notifications can be sent in the following ways:
Simply enter the email address you want the notification to be sent to.
Slack
Notifications can be sent to a Slack channel via their simple and free to install Incoming Webhooks app. You can follow this guide to set up your webhook then you just need to copy the URL that Slack gives you into your Check. It should look something like: https://hooks.slack.com/services/…
Teams
Notifications can be sent to a Microsoft Teams channel via their simple and free to install Incoming Webhooks connector. You can follow this guide to set up your webhook then you just need to copy the URL that Microsoft gives you into your Check. It should look something like: https://outlook.office.com/webhook/…
Examples
Checking a single cell
You can check a single cell by specifying it in the range field using using A1 notation like so: B12.
In the example below we check if we are breaking even by checking if the value in cell A10 is greater than or equal to 0.
Checking multiple cells
You can check multiple cells by specifying a range of cells in the range field using A1 notation like so: A1:A10.
You can then choose if you want your check to evaluate if “Any” of the values in the range match, “All” of the values match or “None” of the values match.
In the example below we check if all of the values in the range C2:C15 are equal to “Done”.
Checking multiple cells against multiple values
You can check multiple cells against multiple values by specifying a range of cells in both the range and value fields using A1 notation like so: A1:A10. In the value field the range needs to be prefixed with an equals sign like so: =A1:A10.
You can then choose if you want your check to evaluate if “Any” of the values in the range match, “All” of the values match or “None” of the values match.
The cells you specify in the range will be matched against their corresponding cell in the value. Lets take the example data below where we might want to check that each member of the sales team had met their assigned target.
To do this we could set the range for our check to C2:C5 and the value to B2:B5 so that we are comparing their sales figures against their targets.
Checking a column
As an extension of checking multiple cells you can check an entire column by specifying the range using A1 notation like so: A:A.
In the example below we check if any of the values in the column B that contains sales are greater than 100.
Checking a row
As an extension of checking multiple cells you can check an entire row by specifying the range using A1 notation like so: 1:1.
In the example below we check if any of the values in the 2nd row, a record of the daily traffic to our website, are greater than 100.
Limits
The following limits apply to your usage of Check Sheet. We reserve the right to change these at any time but will do our best to give you notice of any changes that might affect your usage of Check Sheet.
Spreadsheets
You can use Check Sheet in as many spreadsheets as you like.
Checks
You can create as many checks as you like as well.
Notifications
The only limitation we set is on the number of notificaitions you send each month as there is a cost for sending them.
At present there is a limit of 500 notifications that can be sent per month on our free plan. If you wish to send more than this you will need to upgrade to one of our paid plans.
Your limits will reset monthly, any remaining allowance will not rollover.