You can easily share a spreadsheet in Google Sheets, but you may want to see what changes have been made to Google Sheets by others. You can check the version history, but even more efficient is that you receive a real-time notification about every change and then you view the edit history.
Step 1: Notification Rules
You can set Google Sheets to send you changes every time someone changes something in the document. Open the spreadsheet in question and click Tools / Notification Rules†Here you have the option to automatically receive an email when changes are made or when a user submits a form.
The latter is only relevant if you have linked a Google form to this Google Spreadsheet. You have the choice. Do you want to receive a daily overview of all changes in one e-mail or do you want to receive an immediate e-mail when someone changes something in the spreadsheet?
If you go for the last option, keep in mind that this can become an influx of messages
Step 2: Adjust rules
You can edit and delete each notification line. To delete a rule click on remove and confirm with OK in the pop-up window. It is also possible to add an extra notification line.
In this way you can, for example, indicate that you want to receive a notification with every change and that you also want to receive a summary of all changes in your mailbox at the end of the day.
Step 3: Edit History
The email will tell you who made the change, along with the date and time. You will receive a link to view the edits and open the current version of the spreadsheet. By the way, in the preview, Google Sheets will highlight the change with a color.
It has recently become possible to view the editing history of a cell in Google Sheets. To do this, first click in the preview on View full spreadsheet†Then right click on the cell that was highlighted and choose the new function View Edit Historyâ€
If changes have been made to the cell, you’ll see a separate window with the name of the person who made the change, a timestamp, and details about the change.
