3 Google Sheets Tips and Tricks

1. Invoice Manager
2. Graph Data Quickly
3. Share Comments

Do you want to learn some new functions in Google Sheets that make it easier to manipulate your data? Thankfully, Google Sheets allows you to speed up how you work with information to cut hours off of your daily workload. We’ve already covered part 1 of Google Tips and Tricks, and we have 3 new ones for you below.

1. Invoice Manager with 1-Click Email Parsing

Suppose you send or receive invoices through email and want to collect all the invoices associated with a particular account into Google Sheets. Instead of locating, reading, copying, and pasting all the necessary information, you can use email parsing to move the data from your inbox to Google Sheets automatically. Here’s a video about how to export specific information from emails to Google Sheets, and below is a step-by-step instruction list to help you accomplish your goals.

1. Go to Chrome.Google.com, download Export Emails to Google Sheets by cloudHQ, and install it.
2. Click the Start Export to Google Sheets button on the upper-right side of your inbox.
3. This brings you to your wizard options, where you can select Collect and Parse Invoices and then the Start the Wizard Button to start the export process.
4. You’re then brought to the Save and Export Emails dashboard, where you can see all your parsing jobs. You can also access your active and past jobs using the cloudHQ button at the top of your inbox.
5. Once the parsing has finished and your Google spreadsheet is ready, you’re automatically sent an email letting you know. You can then open your spreadsheet. All your invoices will be there, ready to analyze.

2. SparkLine to Graph Data

SparkLine is probably the fastest possible way to graph data in Google Sheets. Sometimes when you’re dealing with a lot of figures, you’ve got rows and rows and columns and columns of numbers. It can be hard to decipher exactly what is going on within your sheet. Of course, you could create a chart within Google Sheets. But sometimes, a chart is overkill, and you don’t want to clutter your sheet with an extra chart. You may just want a quick view of the data you have in a way that makes it easy to read and interpret, and this is where Spark Line comes in.

1. If you have a column of numbers, you can just go to the cell at the bottom of the column and type in “=SPARKLINE.”
2. Then highlight the numbers in the column. This tells the function which numbers you’ll use to make a chart.
3. Hit enter, and within that cell, you get a simple line chart that graphs the numbers in the column you highlighted.

With SparkLine, you can create a chart in an instant, making it easy to identify trends or anomalous data points that spike up or dip below the others.

3. Sharing Comments with Others

Whether you’re working with a team of people or just partnering with a buddy, it helps to be able to share critical data with others, especially if it could impact future decisions or strategies. Google Sheets makes it easy not only to share important information inside of a sheet but also to send an alert directly to the person’s email inbox. Here’s how to do it:

1. Select a range of cells — or only one — that you want to share with somebody.
2. Right-click or double tap on that cell and select Comment.
3. As you’re typing your comment, include a plus sign, and this brings up a list of email addresses with which you can share the cells and your comment.
4. Start typing in the address of the person you want to share with, and after selecting the person you want to send it to, check the Assign to box.

By selecting this option, you’re telling Google to send an email to this person, directing them to check out that sheet as well as your thoughts on what’s inside.

With email parsing, SparkLine, and comment sharing and notifications, you can introduce another level of efficiency to your workflows. If you’re an employer, letting employees know about these features and how to use them gives them the tools they need to get more done in less time. To discover how you can use an email parser to create a simple invoice manager, download Export Emails to Sheets by cloudHQ today.