Documentation

• Installing
• Getting Started
• Concepts
  • Checks
  • Conditions
  • Values
• Working with Checks
  • Creating a Check
  • Editing a Check
  • Deleting a Check
  • Pausing a Check
• Examples
  • Checking when a single cell is updated
  • Checking when a range of cells is updated
  • Checking when a column is updated
  • Checking when a row is updated
  • Checking when a row is added
• Notifications
  • Targets
    • Email
    • Slack
    • Microsoft Teams
  • Dynamic Notifications Targets
  • Customising Notifications
    • Subject
    • Content
    • Variables
• Pricing
• Limits
• Known Issues

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 spreadsheets.

Getting Started

To create a check you first need to open Check Sheet by clicking on the Check Sheet logo in the sidebar menu found on the right hand side of one of your sheets. If you can’t see this sidebar you may need to click the arrow to expand it in the bottom right hand corner of your screen.

Check Sheet will then launch in the sidebar and you should see the Check Sheet welcome screen which will prompt you to create your first check. Click the “Add” button to create your first check.

Concepts

The following concepts are key to understanding Check Sheet and how to make the best use of it.

Checks

The key concept in Check Sheet is a “check”, you can create many checks and Check Sheet will evaluate the state of all of your checks whenever the following scenarios occur:

• Your spreadsheet is updated (by anyone, not just the Check Sheet user)
• A form that is linked to your spreadsheet is submitted
• Approximately once per hour
• You create or edit a check from the add-on settings

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 depending on the conditions defined.

Conditions

You can create checks on your spreadsheet based on a variety of conditions. The conditions you can use depends upon the type of data that you are checking.

Numbers

For cell(s) containing numbers you can define checks to see if they are:

• Valid Number
• Not Valid Number
• Empty
• Not Empty
• Equal To
• Not Equal To
• Greater Than
• Greater Than Or Equal To
• Less Than
• Less Than Or Equal To
• One Of (CSV list of values to compare against)
• Not One Of (CSV list of values to compare against)

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
• One Of (CSV list of values to compare against)
• Not One Of (CSV list of values to compare against)

Dates

For cell(s) contains dates you can define checks to see if they are:

• Yesterday
• Today
• Tomorrow

Values

The value(s) that your check condition is evaluated against can be one of three types as listed below.

It’s important to note that when evaluating your checks we use the raw value from the spreadsheet, without any formatting applied. For example if you have a cell with a price in that you have formatted as a currency when entering the value you should not include this formatting, just the raw numeric value.

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

Working with Checks

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: The name of your check, this will be shown in notifications
• Sheet: The sheet which contains the data you want to check
• Range: The single cell or range of multiple cells you want to check, specified in A1 notation
• When: The set of cells that must match if the range contains multiple, not visible for single cell ranges
• Is: The condition condition that must be met for your check
• Value: The value you expect your condition to match against, it can be one of these types and isn’t visible for some conditions

A check can have many notifications which have the following properties:

• For: For checks that contain a range of multiple cells this controls whether a notification will be sent for just the first match this is found or for every new match.
• Send: The type of notification to send
• Target: The location the notification should be sent to, it can either be a static value such as an email address or a dynamic target i.e. a value retrieved from your spreadsheet

Editing a Check

To edit a check, open Check Sheet 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, don’t forget to hit save when you are done.

Deleting a Check

To delete a check open Check Sheet 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 at the bottom of the screen.

Pausing a Check

If you wish to temporarily turn off a check without deleting it, edit the check as described above and use the ‘Paused’ toggle to stop Check Sheet from monitoring this check.

Notifications

You can set up your checks to send notifications to one or many targets via Email, Slack or Microsoft Teams. To add notifications to a check click the ‘Add’ button under ‘Notifications’ at the bottom of the create/edit check window.

If you are checking a range of cells you can choose whether to receive a notification just the first time a check matches or each time a new match is found. For example if you had a column with stock statuses you could either receive a notification just the first time a value goes from “In Stock” to “Out of Stock” or each time that occurs.

Targets

The target is where your notification will be sent to and can be one of the following. If you would to see another type of target supported please contact us.

Email

Notifications can be sent via email to yourself or anyone by specifying the email address as the notification target. To add multiple Email notifications add each email address as separate notifications when creating or editing the check.

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 and use that as the notification target. It should look something like: https://hooks.slack.com/services/…

To add more than one Slack notification add each URL as separate notifications when creating or editing the check.

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 and use that as the notification target.

To add more than one Microsoft Teams notification add each URL as separate notifications when creating or editing the check.

Dynamic Notification Targets

If you wish to set the notification target based on a value in your spreadsheet you can do so using dynamic notification targets.

Dynamic notification targets work by specifying the cell or range of cells that the target should be retrieved from using A1 notation.

To set the notification target based on a single cell such as C4 you would set your notification target to: =C4.

To set the notification target based on a range of cells such as a column you need to specify a range that matches the size of the range of your check. For example if your check was evaluating if any value in the range A2:A was greater than 10 you could set the notification target to retrieve the email addresses stored in column B by setting the target to B2:B which is a range of equivalent size. The corresponding cell will be selected and the notification sent to the value of that cell. Using the same example if a new match was found in A10 then the notification would be sent to the value of the cell B10.

Using dynamic notification targets requires a subscription to our pro or premium plans.

Customising Notifications

For some use cases you may want to customise the content of our notifications to include things such as the matching values or format them differently so they can be sent to third parties.

With a subscription to our premium plan you can customise the subject and content of notifications using variables.

Subject

For Email notifications this is the subject of the Email, for Slack or Microsoft Teams this is the value used to summarise the message used in push notifications.

Content

This is main content or body of the Email, Slack or Microsoft Teams message.

Variables

A variable is a way to substitute data into the subject or content of the notification. All variables are wrapped with curly brackets with the name of the variable in the middle like so: {{ name }}

When the notification is sent these variables will be replaced with their corresponding values.

The following variables are available, if there’s something else you need please contact us.

Spreadsheet
Name: {{ spreadsheet }} - The name of the Spreadsheet
Sheet: {{ sheet }} - The name of the Sheet the Check is on
Link: {{ url }} - A link to the Spreadsheet

Check
Name: {{ check }} - The name of your Check
Description: {{ description }} - A description of what your Check does
Range: {{ range }} - The range or cell your Check is on
When: {{ when }} - What set of cells must match if the range contains multiple
Expected Value: {{ expected }} - The expected value of your check
Condition: {{ condition }} - The condition your check must meet

Data
Time: {{ time }}
Matching Cell: {{ cell }} - The A1 position of the new match found
Matching Value: {{ value }} - The value of the new match found
Matching Row: {{ row }} - The values of the entire row the match was found in CSV format
Column from Matching Row: {{ column:A }} - The value of one of the columns in the matching row
Any Value(s): {{ A1:A10 }} - The value(s) of the range provided using A1 notation

As an example to create a notification with the following content for a check that was monitoring when a stock price exceeded a threshold:

A new match was found in A2 for Sell in Stocks at 17:44:30.

Name: GOOG
Target: 100
Price: 105

You would use variables like so, in this example the column A contains the name of the stocks:

A new match was found in {{ cell }} for {{ check }} in {{ spreadsheet }} at {{ time }}.

Name: {{ column:A }}
Target: {{ expected }}
Price: {{ value }}

Examples

• Checking when a single cell is updated
• Checking when a range of cells is updated
• Checking when a column is updated
• Checking when a row is updated

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. 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 Value” matches, if “Every Value” matches or if “No Value” matches.

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 when a row is added

Pricing

You can install and use Check Sheet for free but with certain limits applied. To increase these limits you can upgrade to one of our paid plans. You can view the pricing here and upgrade from within the add-on.

Limits

We offer a generous free version of our app that you can use for as long as you like with some limitations placed on your usage and certain features only available on paid plans, this enables us to cover our running costs and fund future improvements. 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 3 checks on our free plan, this can be 3 checks in one spreadsheet or spread over multiple spreadsheets. If you reach this limit you will need to either delete an existing check before you can add a new one or upgrade to one of our paid plans.

Notifications

You can send up to 500 notifications 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.

This limit will reset monthly, any remaining allowance will not rollover. You can view your remaining allowance for this month from the Check Sheet > Settings screen, accessible from the drop down menu within the Check Sheet add-on.

Known Issues

Below are some known issues with Check Sheet, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Updates made via other add-ons or apps may be delayed

Due to a limitation in how we get the data from your spreadsheet, updates that are made via other add-ons or apps may not be picked up in real-time. They will be either be seen the next time an update is made via a person, form submission or when we evaluate all checks approximately once per hour. We are looking into ways to improve upon this.