TODAY - Yagisanatode

Google Sheets: How to create a task completion check sheet. (Updated Feb 2022)

Google Sheet: IMPORTRANGE, IF, TODAY, conditional formatting, tick box, alternating colors, protect sheet and ranges, share sheet

Sometimes you have teams, staff or students who all need to complete reports and tasks by a certain date, but you need a way to keep track of when the reports are complete so that you can compile them later.

The following tutorial is a simple tick box-based Google Sheet that the user ticks when they have finished writing their quarterly report. I use something like this in my day to day to keep track of a number of reporting processes.

This is very much a follow-along guide for Google Sheet Beginners to help develop some basics skills and think about how to design Sheets for the workplace. Feel free to read what you need or skip to the end for a link to the google sheet for you to make a copy of.

Here is what we will complete by the end of the tutorial.

If the user’s tick box had not been ticked in Column ‘C’, Column ‘D’ will automatically report Overdue in red and Column ‘E’ will report the number of days overdue.

There is a space set aside for administration to note the reminders that they have sent to the user and the last date the reminder was sent. Admin can easily copy the emails and send a message to those staff who have not completed their report by the deadline.

Let me walk you through the workflow for creating this:

Continue reading “Google Sheets: How to create a task completion check sheet. (Updated Feb 2022)”

How to display a date for one day in a week that automatically changes weekly on Google Sheets

Google Sheets – TEXT, TODAY, WEEKDAY

If you are a busy admin nerd like me and have created a Google Doc or Sheet on the fly to meet your company’s demands for something or another, you probably also have a few Sheets lying around that are not 100% right. That obsessive-compulsive nature in you is niggling the back of your mind saying, “You can do this better!”

But the day-to-day race to get things done takes over and you move on to more pressing matter.

Until the next time you have to look at that Google Sheet and it starts bugging you again. Well, until you have a moment to fix it.

The Problem

For me each week I had a sign-up sheet for a makeup test for students. The coordinators who would add students to the sheet required that in the header rows, the date of the next Makeup Test be added for each week.

The makeup test was always at the same time each week: Monday at 15:30. I would then need to prefix this with the day and month. So it would look something like this:

Monday 28 Jan at 15:30

My original approach then was to open the sheet and change the date manually each week. Okay, I admit that on not just one occasion I forgot to change the date much to the glee of the most persnickety of the coordinators who could happily call me out on my failure. Grrr.

I knew I could make this more efficient. I knew I could probably automate this process. Fortunately, the day finally came where I found myself with 15 minute s of free time and this issue in my mind.

This post is the solution to the problem.

The Solution

Continue reading “How to display a date for one day in a week that automatically changes weekly on Google Sheets”

Add the Current Date When Data is Added to a Cell(Dynamic) – Google Sheets

Google Apps Script: NOW, TODAY

A colleague of mine had recently asked me if there was a way to automatically display the day’s date when a cell has data in it without having to use Google Apps Script.

My answer: “Why yes, there is Jim.”

There are two really cool tools that you can use in Google Sheets to get the current date or time and date:

NOW
TODAY

The NOW formula provides a date and time stamp at the time of execution or when the NOW() function is entered into the sheet.

The TODAY formula provides just the date at the time of execution or when the TODAY() formula is entered into the sheet.

Change the date when a cell is edited

That’s all well and good but I want this formula to occur when a user enters something in a cell.

Done:

To achieve this, we can use an IF statement. First, we will state if the cell is empty, then no date should appear. However, if the cell has a value in it, then the date and/or time the value was entered will appear in the corresponding cell.

Here’s the formula:

=IF(A2 ="", "", TODAY()) <<Formula is celll D2

ِAs you can see in the IF statement we are saying; if there is nothing in cell A2 then don’t do anything, otherwise, if it contains a value then add today’s date in this cell, D2.

Now, if you want to have this ready for all rows for when a user adds to your data, then drag the formula all the way down to the bottom of the sheet.

Here is an example:

Ready to add some data? Here is what is would look like:

The NOW() and TODAY() functions are Dynamic. This means that they will update automatically. To keep these dates from changing, copy the cell and press <CTRL>+<SHIFT>+<V> or paste special> paste as value.

A Warning on NOW() and TODAY()

These two functions are Dynamic and will update constantly. If you are looking to get the date or time of something so that it does not update automatically then check out this tutorial :

Add the Current Date to a Sheet When Data Is Added So That The Date Does Not Change(Static) – Google Sheets

Give it a try.

Did you enjoy the tutorial? Want to upskill and get a solid step-by-step course to become a pro at Google Sheets? Check out my course, Google Sheets: Learn the Essentials with Three Detailed Projects. Sign up today.