Google Sheets gains a sidebar for making and reviewing comments | ZDNet

Google Sheets is a popular tool for collaborating, and keeping track of projects and things like sales targets. Now Sheets is getting a sidebar to highlight comments and display conversation threads as part of a visual revamp. 

The sidebar might seem like a minor change, but it could make collaboration a whole lot easier with the ability to review and filter out comments to get the job done. Users can also page through common threads in a document.

This should make it easier to reply to, resolve, or create new conversations when working with colleagues. The sidebar also lets users see all the conversations that are happening in a spreadsheet.

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Users can also take action within the sidebar when tasks are done, or conversations have been resolved.

“Comments are a powerful way to discuss and collaborate wherever you and your colleagues are, and whenever you’re working. By making it easier to review, respond to, and resolve comments in Sheets, it’s easier to collaborate to create more impactful data and analysis,” Google notes. 

Sheets users can see comments by clicking the comment icon in the ‘Appbar’. The comment icon is next to the green ‘Share’ button and pops up a comment box.

After opening it, users can @ reference the person they want to notify and then assign the comment to that person in order to notify them that they’re responsible for marking the issue as done.

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There’s also an option to ‘open all comments’ in the sheet tab as well as to ‘open’ from any comment anchored to a particular cell. 

Sheets, which is part of Workspace, is one office productivity app that Google is working on to deliver its Smart Canvas idea – a layer designed to connect documents created across Workspace apps. Commenting abilities in each app, to help users improve workflow and collaborate across projects and documents, form a key component of that vision.