Send messages in channels to communicate with colleagues, give notes and feedback, and facilitate collaboration.

Spreadsheet.com is designed for collaboration and provides channels where you can work with your team. A Channel is a place where you can send messages to other users. 

Use channels to share a note explaining why you changed the status of an opportunity in your team's CRM workbook, or to detail the next steps you will take with a bug in your team's bug tracker, or to send an @Message to a new user welcoming them to your team's project tracker.

Workbook, Row, and Cell Channels

Each workbook has three levels of channels: the Workbook channel, the Row channel, and the Cell channel. For all channels, users must have the permission level of "Commenter" or higher to be able to comment in a workbook. All content in channels is displayed in reverse chronological order with the newest messages at the bottom.

Workbook Channels

At the highest level is the workbook channel which can be accessed from any worksheet or view within your workbook. The workbook channel contains an audit log of added users and is used to collaborate with others about the workbook at large.

The workbook channel can be accessed via the workbook messages icon in the top right of your worksheet.

See our article on Workbook Channels and Messages for more information. 

Row Channels

In individual worksheets, you can add messages, @Mentions, replies, and more to specific rows of data. The row channel is visible when the row is expanded from the original worksheet or when the row is referenced as a Related row.

Rows with messages currently in them will be denoted by a yellow message flag in the top right corner of the row header for that row. You can expand a row. by double clicking on the row number, clicking on the expand icon in the row header, or by right clicking on a row and selecting "Expand row..." from the dropdown.

See our article on Row Channels and Messages for more information.

Cell Channels

The cell channel allows you to comment on the data in a specific cell. Use the cell channel to ask questions or make comments about the data in a cell. Like the row channel, cells with messages are demarcated by a yellow flag in the top right corner.

You can access a cell's cell channel by right clicking on the cell and selecting "Cell messages..." from the dropdown.

See our article on Cell Channels and Messages for more information.

Types of Channel Messages

You can add 5 types of messages to a channel: comments, @mentions, replies, emojis, or reactions.

Comment

To add a comment in a workbook channel, compose your message in the text box (indicated by "Add comment") at the bottom of the a workbook, row, or cell channel and press Enter (or Return) on your keyboard, just like in other messaging apps and services.

Comments can include @Mentions and emojis, described below.

@Mentions

Using @Mentions allows you to talk to a specific user that already has access to your workbook. Messages with @Mentions in the workbook channel will still be visible to all users with access to the channel, but will notify the mentioned user via email that they have been mentioned in the channel. The email notification will display the message content and the sender's name.

To @Mention another user in your message, type an @ symbol before writing their name and select it from the dropdown that appears as you type.

Or, click the @ symbol in the bottom right corner of the text box to access a list of all users in the workbook.

If a user does not appear in the @mentions, then either they have not yet been added to your workbook or do not have sufficient permission to read comments.

Emojis

You can add emojis to your messages via the emoji selector, accessible by clicking on the emoji icon in the bottom right corner of the text box.

Replies

Replies include the message that's being replied to – but not the whole chain of replies – and notify the most recent author of your reply. You can reply to a specific message by hovering over it and clicking the reply icon from the list of options that appears in the top right corner of the message.

The previous message will then appear above your text box and in your comment when you press enter.

Reactions

Reactions are like emojis but in direct response to a message. There can be multiple reactions to a given message, and users can upvote an existing reaction. You can react to an existing message by hovering over it and clicking the emoji icon from the list of options that appears in the top right corner of the message.

This will open the emoji selector, from where you can select your emoji reaction.

Editing and Deleting Messages

In addition to replies and reactions, some users can edit their comments or delete the comments of any other user. These features are determined by permission level, as defined below.

Learn more about all three types of channels in our suite of articles on Channels. Or, read on to learn more about more collaborative features like Spreadsheet.com Notifications and @Mentioning Users.