Lesson Plan for Google SPREADSHEETS

Training snapshot:

Overview The purpose of this training is to highlight key features of Google

Spreadsheets.

Overall Learning At the end of this session, you will be able to:
Outcomes ● Articulate the benefits of using Google Spreadsheets
● Efficiently perform basic and some advanced tasks in
Spreadsheets

Estimated Time 1.5 hours

Room Set Up No specific room set up needed - although make sure people have room for
their laptops if you are going to do any hands on exercises
Projector needed to present
Speakers to play a YouTube videos

Before Be sure to practice all the steps you'll be demonstrating!

the Class I need to Check out the What's new on Google Docs site for new product features to
make sure you don't miss any important update on Google Presentations

After Collect feedback: Spreadsheet

the Class I need to

Agenda:

Time Activity

0:00 to Sample introduction (5 min)

0:05 Welcome! This is going to be a very hands-on session. I will do a little bit of talking, but
to ensure that you get the most out of this session, I'd like for most of it to be an
opportunity for you to try out different features in Google Spreadsheets. I will provide
you with a series of exercises and guide you as you go through them.

*Best practice* Ask if attendees have any specific questions, and write on whiteboard.
Be sure to address before the end of class.

0:05 to Quick intro to Apps / Cloud Computing: video

0:10

GOOGLE SPREADSHEETS

0:10 to (50 min)

1:00 Instructor demonstrates, and the class follows along on their computers.

Log in to Google Docs App

● Create a new spreadsheet

○ Each spreadsheet can be up to 256 columns, 400,000
cells, or 200 sheets, whichever is reached first
○ No limit on rows
● Share
○ A total of 50 people can edit a spreadsheet
 simultaneously
○ You can share a spreadsheet with 200 collaborators
and/or viewers
● Built-in chat
○ When more than one person is viewing a spreadsheet, a
box with the name of the collaborator appears at the top of the screen.
Additional collaborators that join will also be listed in this box
○ Click the arrow to the right of the names to open a tab
where you can chat with other editors within the spreadsheet.
○ If you do not have the chat window open and someone sends a message,
the box with collaborators will be highlighted in orange.
● Spreadsheet settings: review locale, time zone (language in Docs Settings)

● Repeat or extend patterns using auto fill

○ Enter your content. Auto-fill usually needs about 3 cells
of data to learn the pattern. (e.g. 1, 3, 5 or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
○ Highlight the cells. A small blue box appears in the
lower-right corner.
○ Click the blue box and drag it to select additional cells
where you'd like your content to repeat. (When you place your cursor over
the blue box, the cursor arrow changes to an x-y axis.)
● Edit: create a new line within a cell
○ ctrl + enter OR alt + enter
● Change cell data type
○ Open "123" drop-down menu
● Hyperlink using formula
○ =hyperlink("url", "text to display")
● Hide gridlines in spreadsheets
○ When editing a spreadsheet, under the ‘View’ menu, click on ‘Hide gridlines’
for each sheet, leaving only the borders that have been put there (blog
post)
● Vertical merge: you can create vertical merges across several rows of data
● Paste options: paste special options including: paste all cell contents except
borders, formulas only, data validation only, or conditional formatting only
● Import/Export support: You can convert most pivot tables between Microsoft
Excel files and Google spreadsheets.
Use cases for comments (Note: Mention as needed)
- If you have long comments that don't fit nicely into a cell (e.g., it messes up the
formatting), using a comment to house this long comment allows users to hover over
and see the long note when needed (e.g., Cell text: "Enter Name Here"; Comment:
"Please use 'lastname, firstname' format, and do not use middle initials")
- Can use to note changes in specific cells, i.e. on a monthly budget tracker, with many
columns, add quick explanation why number change from projection for a specific line
item and month

● Insert comments
○ Click the cell where you'd like to insert a comment
○ Right click > insert comment OR Insert menu >
Comment
● Edit comments
○ Hover your cursor over the orange comment indicator in
the cell of the comment you'd like to edit
○ The Comment box appears and shows the text of your
comment. Click box and edit your comment.
 ○ Click another cell to save and close comment box.
● Delete comments
○ Select all of the text in the Comment box, including your
email address or nickname, and press Delete
○ Right click on a cell and select "clear comments"

Use cases for notifications (Note: Mention as needed)

-see when new responses come in
-e.g., If I have a spreadsheet that houses daily news snippets, when new content is
added, I get email notifications when there's new content updated.
-e.g., For Forms, I can get notifications that people have submitted data (instead of
checking back on the spreadsheet daily to see if anyone has taken time to fill out my
survey).
-Super helpful if you're tracking things like RSVPs
-Make sure you know when changes are made to a sensitive spreadsheet (like budget)
-If project tracker is in a spreadsheet, have notification to see if status has changed for
different tasks
-For now you can't subscribe an entire list to these notifications, so the best option is to
set up Gmail filters to get these and forward the email automatically.(see this help
article)

● Enable notifications
○ Click Tools > Notification Rules

● Manage your spreadsheets

○ Click on "=" (menu) sign in the bottom left of your
spreadsheet to display a menu with the list of all the sheet names. Click on
the desired sheet name.
● Copy a sheet into another Spreadsheet in your docs list
○ Click the down arrow next to the sheet name
○ From the menu, click Copy to...

Use cases for protect sheet: (Note: Mention as needed)

-Want to share doc but don't want collaborators to change a specific sheet.
-e.g., If I have a workbook with several individual sheets where different project owners
can enter data for their own projects, and 1 'master' sheet that contains very complex
formulas to aggregate the data, I don't want someone to accidentally delete out any
formula, so would want to protect that sheet.

● Protect Sheet
○ Click the sheet's tab at the bottom of your spreadsheet
and select Protect. On the window that appears, select one of the options.
○ Only owners can set editing permissions for individual
sheets. Collaborators and viewers will still be able to view the data on the
protected sheet, but depending on the permission you set for each sheet,
they won't be able to make any changes or delete a protected sheet.

Use cases for data validation: (Note: Mention as needed)

-If I have a spreadsheet used to capture team metrics, I don't want anyone to enter non-
numerical data because that will confuse any formulas to do calculations.
-If I have a sheet for tracking budgets, I might put in data validation to flag when
someone enters a value that exceeds a specified budget.
-If you're going to be exporting the data for some other use (importing into a program,
publishing to a RSS feed), make sure it's in the correct format (date, etc.)
 ● Set up data validation
○ Go to Data and select Validation
○ Show off "choose from a list" - check out the examples
and screenshots here

● Formulas
○ Double-click an empty cell, and click the
Insert>Function or Sigma (Σ) button on the toolbar
○ Select a formula from the list that appears.
● Quick sum feature
○ Quick sum lets you see the sum of selected cells right in
the spreadsheet, without entering any functions or formulas.
○ Highlight the cells of data that you'd like to total; the sum appears in the
○ bottom right corner of the page, this also contains often used "quick items"
like average, count, min and max

● Freeze rows: Click the View tab. Use the Freeze rows drop-down to
select up to 10 rows at the top of the current sheet that you want to remain
unsorted.
○ Same with freeze columns
● Sort data by different columns in varying priority
○ Highlight the group of cells you'd like to sort. To sort the
entire sheet, click the top left corner of the sheet to select all cells.
○ Click Data > Sort Range ...
○ Check Data has header row if your columns have
titles.
1. Select the column you'd like to be
sorted first and whether you would like that column sorted in
ascending or descending order.
2. Click + Add another if you'd like
another sorting rule added. Sorting will be prioritized according to
the order of your rules.
3. Click the X to the left of your rule to
eliminate it.
4. Click Sort

Use cases of Gadgets: (Note: Mention as needed)

- See article on mapping election results.
- Motion Chart gadget - for lots of data where you want to track different results (maybe
active usage of a product?)
- Map gadget to show breakdown of attendees at an event or distribution of a team
- Heat map gadget to show usage by country

● Gadgets
○ Select Insert > Gadget. The Add a Gadget window
appears, where you can select gadgets in a number of categories, including
charts, tables, and maps.
○ Click Add to your spreadsheet to insert a gadget.
○ When you click a gadget in your spreadsheet, a gray
border appears around the gadget, along with a Gadget drop-down menu.
Click Gadget to open the menu and select Edit, Delete, Publish, or Add
to iGoogle.
● Move a gadget to its own sheet
○ Click the grey triangle in the upper-right corner of your
 gadget to open a drop-down menu.
○ Select Move to own sheet from the menu.

Use cases of Forms: (Note: Mention as needed)

-surveys
-sign up sheets
-quizzes
-RSVP

● Create a new Form

○ From your docs list, Create new > Form
● Add item
○ Click Form in your spreadsheet
○ Add item at the top of the editing page.
○ Select the type of question you wish to add.
● Edit confirmation page
○ Go to edit your form if you are not already on the
editing page (from the spreadsheet, click the Form menu and select Edit
form).
○ Click the More actions button at the top right of the
form and select Edit confirmation from the drop down menu.
● Enable the option for respondents to edit submitted forms
○ Check the Allow users to edit responses box
displayed at the top of the form while editing.
● Automatically collect a respondent’s username
○ Select the checkbox next to Automatically collect
respondent's username while you create or edit the form
● Create a form from a new or existing spreadsheet
○ Click the Tool drop-down menu and select Create a
form
● Create form from a template
○ From your Docs list, click the Create new button and
select From template....
○ From within an existing document, click the File menu
and select New and then From template....
○ Click Forms under 'Narrow by type,' on the left side of
the page
● Themes
○ While editing your form, at the top you can click on
"themes" to access a gallery of themes you can apply to your spreadsheet

● Manage your form: (Form menu)

○ Send form via email
○ Find the URL for your form: select Go to live form and
copy the URL
○ Embed form in a webpage (More Actions -> Embed)
○ Accepting responses (uncheck to stop accepting
responses)
● Set up notifications for your form
○ Click Tool at the menu bar of the form response
spreadsheet and select Notification Rules
● See responses from the edit form page
○ Click the See responses button at the top-right of the
form and select Spreadsheet from the drop down menu
○ Select Summary or Spreadsheet
 ● Charts
○ Select the cells of data you'd like to include in the chart.
○ Insert > Chart
○ Note: It helps to label the data in your spreadsheet
before creating a chart. For example, if you want to chart your expenses,
you might have a row of numbers labeled 'Rent' and another labeled
'Groceries.' These labels will appear automatically in the window where you
create and preview your chart.
● Edit Chart data settings
○ Click anywhere in the chart. A Chart drop-down menu
appears in a gray border around the chart.
○ Select Chart > Edit chart
○ Make edits and save chart
● Copy charts from spreadsheets into documents and drawings: blog post

1:00 to Advanced content (cover if needed):

1:15 ● Pivot tables in Spreadsheets: blog post including a video; detailed tutorial
● Sparkline: creates a chart inside of a cell, help article with examples here

1:15 to Wrap Up (10 min)

1:25 ● Summarise key points and answer questions

1:25 to Feedback (5 min)

1:30 Reminder about filling in feedback form