One of the main advantages of using Google Docs as a platform to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations is the ease of sharing them with other people, without having to pay a subscription as is the case with Microsoft 365 since, in addition, the documents are stored directly in the Google cloud, which can be a problem or an advantage depending on how you look at it.
If you regularly work with shared documents, especially with spreadsheets, Google has introduced a new function that is responsible for sending an email to the owners of the document when certain conditions are met, such as adding or deleting a line or column, modifying data in a cell, change the format among others.
This feature is especially useful in spreadsheets where minimum values are established that must not fall below a minimum, such as inventories, forecast analysis, growth projections, days remaining to finish a project to name a few examples.
By configuring this feature, the owner and everyone else who has access to the shared spreadsheet can configure notifications to reach them and anyone else involved in the project who needs to immediately know that information.
In this way, it will not be necessary to investigate the change history of the shared sheet, who has made changes to it, since we will know instantly. While it is true that Google Docs allows you to protect shared documents so that no one other than the owner can modify them, very few people do it.
Notify changes to a spreadsheet by email
This new function will be available through the Tools section, where we can also configure other types of notifications, from the option Conditional notifications > Add rule.
Next, a new panel will open on the right of the spreadsheet where, first of all, we must give it a name to be able to identify it if it is necessary to delete or modify it, choose the type of change (change the value; add or delete values, cells or columns among others) and select in which range of cells to apply the rule.
Finally, we must select who we want send the notification. As we mentioned above, we can send the notification to the owner of the sheet and/or to the users who have access to it. You cannot send notifications to users who do not have direct access to the documentmore than anything because it doesn’t make any sense, since, not being able to access it, it can care little about the changes that occur inside.
Availability
This function is added to what Google Docs already offered and which allows you to send an email to the owner and people with access to a document when it is add or modify a comment in the spreadsheet.
Google has just introduced this new functionality so it is not yet available in all countries. At first, it will reach paid Google Workspace users and then reach all users who have personal Google accounts, so if as a private user you are interested in using this new function, you will have to wait for some accounts. weeks.