A Google Spreadsheet lets you easily access your chapter info from a phone/laptop/tablet (so you never have to worry about losing the information if your device breaks), and if you have Vice or Co-Queens then you can also set it so that they have access to this sheet as well.
You can even set them up with checkboxes to mark off RSVPs, Paid status and attendance.
To make a Google Spreadsheet, click on the square of dots in the top menu of gmail (or any other google product), and scroll down until you find “sheets” Then click the + to create a new sheet.
This guide will show you how to make a google spreadsheet, how to adjust the columns, how to add checkboxes and dropdowns, and how to import from a google form
Is made using google sheets on a PC, so it will look different if you’re doing this on a phone or a tablet with a smaller screen.
Using our Basic Membership Sheet
You can make a copy of this blank membership sheet and modify it to work for your chapter. You will need to click on “File” and choose to “Make a copy” to make a new copy of the spreadsheet. his is an important step because you can’t make edits to the original file (because that’s owned by “Aussie Hatting” and stored on the AH google account) – by making a copy, you are making a version of that file on YOUR google account, which allows you to make changes to it.
Now that you have your copy, you can make your edits.
Spreadsheets – the basics
If you have never used a spreadsheet before, this might seem daunting, but it’s not – because you only need a few of the options available, and you can ignore everything else. If you’ve used Microsoft Excel, then google sheets works similarly to that.
First things first. The lingo.
The row of LETTERS along the top, these are the COLUMNS
The row of NUMBERS down the side, these are the ROWS
The individual grid/box things, those are CELLS
You can also have multiple “Sheets” (think of them as pages) in the one Google Sheet document. Down the bottom of the page you’ll see a + where you can add additional sheets. You can use the downward arrow to delete, duplicate, rename etc. a “sheet”. You can also drag them to reorder them.
If you want to copy information from one CELL to another, you can click on the cell you want to copy, so that it’s highlighted in blue, then click the dot on the corner ans drag that across to another cell to copy the information over.
Just be aware that if you’re dragging a cell with numbers, it may think you’re wanting to make another number in sequence, so if your cell had a 10 and you drag it over to duplicate, it might instead put an 11 in the next cell.
Depending on what you’re using the sheet for, you’ll have different amounts of information you want to put in there, and the COLUMNS will need to be different widths, you can easily adjust the width of the COLUMN and the depth of a ROW if you want.
When you put your mouse pointer on the edge of a column, you’ll see two lines || that means you can left click the mouse and drag the border of that column to make it wider or narrower.
You can also change the background colour of the first row to make it into a nice heading. Simply put your mouse on the #1 row, and click on the 3 dots in the top menu, then select the paint can icon (Fill Colour) and select the colour you want to use.
You will then end up with something that looks like this:
You can add as many columns as you need, for example a membership sheet might have columns for:
Full name, Hatter name, Address, Email, Phone (landline and mobile), Birthdate, Medical/allergy information, Emergency contact information. It can also include info such as if they have paid membership and other things you want to keep track of.
You can also use it to keep track of the RSVPs and/or attendance at your meetups, allowing you to easily see at a glance who is/isn’t coming to events, who hasn’t RSVPed, and if you mark off no-shows, you can use it to easily see if members are regularly attending things or not.
Making the sheet even more condensed
If you’re making a sheet for RSVPs or something, you’ll want very narrow columns.
You can rotate the heading row to make the columns narrower by clicking on “Format” in the top menu, then selecting “Rotation”, and then “Rotate up”
You can drag the columns to make them wider or narrower as you need to.
Freezing a row or column
Sometimes if you have a lot of columns (for example information on a chapter member), by the time you scroll along, the column with the person’s name is then hidden and that makes a sheet harder to use.
But you can “freeze” a column (or row), so that it will always stay visible. To do that, highlight the column you want not to ever disappear (eg A), and click “view” and “Freeze” and then “Up to column A”. If you ever need to undo this, just select “no columns” to go back to the default.
Adding Checkboxes
To make fancy checkboxes, click your cursor onto the cell you want the checkbox in and click “insert” on the top menu, and select “Checkbox”
As with any cell, you can copy a checkbox from one cell across a whole row or column by clicking on the cell, then holding your mouse pointer on the blue dot and dragging it across the row/column.
Making a Dropdown
Another thing you can use is a “Drop down” (which is the option below a checkbox in the “insert” menu) – which has a little arrow that lets you select one choice from a list – you can use this for marking whether something has been paid for, or other sorts of uses.
How much of the writing you see depends on the column width, so colour coding the options and having short but distinct words is suggested.
To do that, put your cursor on the cell you want to have the box on, and click “Insert” then “Dropdown”. It will bring up a window like this. All you need to do is type in what you want the options to be called (eg Paid/unpaid) and you can assign them a colour.
If you want to have a default setting that shows that a selection hasn’t been made, you can use “choose” and leave it grey.
When you’re finished, click done.
As with any cell, you can copy a dropdown from one cell across a whole row or column by clicking on the cell, then holding your mouse pointer on the blue dot and dragging it across the row/column.
Importing a Form results into your Chapter member spreadsheet
If you have used a Google Form to collect RSVPs, you can have those results import into the same spreadsheet you use for tracking membership information and other things.
To do that, when you select where the form responses will be sent to, instead of making a new spreadsheet, select to use an existing spreadsheet, then click “select” and you can choose which of your spreadsheets to add it to.
It will then show as a new “sheet” (page/tab) with the purple icon.
Sharing the Spreadsheet (SECURELY)
Another advantage of doing this as an online Google spreadsheet is that access can be shared among the Queen & Vice Queen of a chapter, or Co-Queens, or even a treasurer/secretary.
But if you’re collecting members addresses and phone numbers, you might not want to make a sharable “anyone with the link” share, to limit exactly who can access this spreadsheet of private data.
To share the spreadsheet that allows only select people to access the spreadsheet, you need to add their email address in the top where it says “add people, groups…” Make sure the General access is left “Restricted”
Once you’ve put an email address in the box up the top, it will give you the option to choose how they can access, and you can decide based on who you’re giving that link to, and what you want to allow.
- Editor – Can make changes to the sheet the same way you can (including delete things)
- Commenter – Can leave comments but not make changes to anything. Good for someone like a secretary or treasurer who might need access to view, but you might not want to allow them to edit the sheet. Allows them to let you know if any changes need to be made.
- Viewer – Can see it but not make any changes, nor make comments
Please note that even if you select viewer/commenter, it’s possible for anyone who has the link to make a copy of the sheet and edit their own copy. (not that there would be reason to, but just so you’re aware)
If the “notify people” box is checked (as it is by default) it will email the person to let them know they have access to the document and a link to it. So it’s nice to keep that checked, then just click “send” and you’ve given them access to that spreadsheet.
To revoke access, you can simply remove that email address from the list of people with access.
How to comment on a sheet
If you’ve given commenter access to someone, they can comment on a cell to let you know something needs to be updated or to give information without them having access to make the change.
They do this by right clicking on a cell and scrolling down to “comment”
They get a box to type a comment in
You can see any cells that have a comment with a yellow triangle in the corner. If you mouse over that cell, the comment will pop up, and it also lets you know which person made that comment.
