DRAFT

Google Workspace offers various Google apps to facilitate collaborative working. You have for example Docs for reports, taking meeting notes, Sheets for the budgets and Forms for surveys, event registrations, order forms, to gather information from colleagues and asking authorizations for a trip… Below you can find some tips and tricks for Docs and Forms. The same features are available in Sheets. To discover more on Sheet watch this video.

Google Docs. 

Multiple users can edit the file at the same time. You can see where others are editing by clicking their icon at the top of the document. 

It is possible to change the mode from Editing to Suggesting to avoid modifying the content. You can make suggestions to either add or remove content.

 

Those with Editor rights will be able to accept or reject suggestions. They can click Tools\Review suggested edits to conveniently review them.

 

You can add comments instead of editing. Click Insert Comment, or click the shortcut on the top bar or select and right click a text and choose Comment.

 

In the comment you can assign a task to someone else by typing @colleaguemail.

 

If you want to review the history of the comments, you can click the open comment history shortcut on the top bar. You can define which comment to display.

 

If you want to review the file history, you can access Version history in the File menu

or by clicking the shortcut on the top bar (you can use it to review recent edits).

 

It can be practical to give the versions a name. 

 

When you click See version history you get a list of all versions, showing you who edited something.

You can review the change by browsing the edit at the top. 

If you want to restore a given version, simply click the three dots and choose Restore this version

 

Notice that you can make the document available offline, if you want to continue editing it in your browser while you are offline.

 

Using Tool\Explore you can search the web, or for images or even your Drive for enhanced content to add.

 

Finally, in Tools allows you to dictate what you want to write in your document. It works pretty well. Give it a try!

 

While you are working on the document you can start a Google Meet and present the file to others that can contribute in real time.

 

Google Forms. 

 

You can use various types of questions and use images in them. 

The preview feature allows you to see what your survey looks like.

For each question you can decide whether it is required.

 

You may want to use validation rules by clicking on the three dots

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For example if you ask to provide an email address, you can check for the @ symbol in the text.

 

You can decide to continue to other sections based on user’s replies.

After each section you can decide to jump to other sections.

 

In the settings you find a lot of interesting features, like you can decide whether to collect email addresses, send users a copy of their response, allow response editing, show progress bar, shuffle question order, enable and edit the confirmation message, and other useful settings.

 

There is a difference between adding collaborators to the form (which is basically sharing the form with others to let them review or edit it) and publishing the form. 

If you want to send the form to your users for them to reply, simply click the Send button (do not send the edit URL of the form).

 

You see the results by viewing a summary of the replies, by reviewing the answers to specific questions, or by responders. You can download the answers. 

 

Pay attention to who has access to answers, should they be kept private (if stored in a Shared folder double check who has access or limit access).