If you have a Nest thermostat at home, you can access it from your Google Sheet by using Google Apps Script to connect to the Smart Device Management API.
It means you can do some cool stuff like build a virtual, working Nest thermostat in your Google Sheet:
This Formula Challenge originally appeared as Tip #131 of my weekly Google Sheets Tips newsletter, on 21 December 2020.
Sign up here so you don’t miss out on future Formula Challenges:
Find all the Formula Challenges archived here.
Question: How can you merge n number of columns and get the unique values, without typing each one out?
In other words, can you create a single formula that gives the same output as this one:
=SORT( UNIQUE( {A:A;B:B;C:C;...;XX:XX} )) but without having to write out A:A, B:B, C:C, D:D etc. and instead just write A:XX as in the input?
Use this simple dataset example, where your formula will be in cell E1 (in green):
Your answer should:
I received 67 replies to this formula challenge with two different methods for solving it. Congratulations to everyone who took part!
I learnt so much from the different replies, many of which proffered a shorter and more elegant second solution than my own original formula.
Here I present the two solutions.
There’s a lot to learn by looking through them.
=SORT(UNIQUE(FLATTEN(A:C)))The formula uses the FLATTEN function to collect data from the input ranges into a single column before the UNIQUE function selects the unique ones before they are finally sorted.
Note 1: you can have multiple inputs (arguments) to the FLATTEN function. Data is ordered by the order of the inputs, then row and then column.
Note 2: at the moment the FLATTEN function doesn’t show up in the auto-complete when you start typing it out. You can still use it, but you’ll have to type it out fully yourself.
Thanks to the handful of you that shared this neat solution with me. Great work!
Join all the values in A:C with TEXTJOIN, using a unique character as the delimiter (in this case, the King and Queen chess pieces!)
You want to use an identifier that is not in columns A to C.
=TEXTJOIN("♔♕",TRUE,A:C)Split on this unique delimiter using the SPLIT function:
=SPLIT(TEXTJOIN("♔♕",TRUE,A:C),"♔♕")Use the TRANSPOSE function to switch to a column, select the unique values only and finally wrap with a sort function to get the result:
=SORT(UNIQUE(TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(TEXTJOIN("♔♕",TRUE,A:C),"♔♕"))))There we go!
Two brilliant solutions to an interesting formula challenge.
Please leave comments if you have anything you wish to add.
And don’t forget to sign up to my Google Sheets Tips newsletter so you don’t miss future formula challenges!
Google Sheets sort by color and filter by color are useful techniques to organize your data based on the color of text or cells within the data.
For example, you might highlight rows of data relating to an important customer. Google Sheets sort by color and filter by color let you bring those highlighted rows to the top of your dataset, or even only show those rows.
They’re really helpful for removing duplicates in Google Sheets too.
As a bonus, they’re really easy to use. Let’s see how:
Suppose you have a dataset with highlighted rows, for example all the apartments in this dataset:
Add a filter (the funnel icon in the toolbar, shown in red in the above image).
On any of the columns, click the filter and choose the “Sort by color” option.
You can filter by the background color of the cell (like the yellow in this example) or by the color of the text.
The result of applying this sort is all the colored rows will be brought to the top of your dataset.
This is super helpful if you want to review all items at the same time. Another reason might be if they’re duplicate rows you’ve highlighted which you can now delete.
The Google Sheets filter by color method is very similar to the sort by color method.
With the filters added to your dataset, click one to bring up the menu. Select “Filter by color” and then select to filter on the background cell color or the text color.
In this example, I’ve used the Google Sheets filter by color to only display the yellow highlighted rows, which makes it really easy to review them.
There’s an option to remove the filter by color by setting it to none, found under the filter by color menu. This option is not found for the sort by color method.
When I originally published this article, sort by color and filter by color were not available natively in Google Sheets, so I created a small script to add this functionality to a Sheet.
They were added on 11th March 2020. Read more here in the Google Workspace update blog.
Here is my original Apps Script solution, left here for general interest.
With a few simple lines of Apps Script, we can implement our own version.
This article will show you how to implement that same feature in Google Sheets.
It’s a pretty basic idea.
We need to know the background color of the cell we want to sort or filter with (user input 1). Then we need to know which column to use to do the sorting or filtering (user input 2). Finally we need to do the sort or filter.
So step one is to to prompt the user to input the cell and columns.
I’ve implemented this Google Sheets sort by color using a modeless dialog box, which allows the user to click on cells in the Google Sheet independent of the prompt box. When the user has selected the cell or column, we store this using the Properties Service for retrieval when we come to sort or filter the data.
At a high level, our program has the following components:
Let’s look at each of these sections in turn.
This is simply boilerplate Apps Script code to add a custom menu to your Google Sheet:
/**
* Create custom menu
*/
function onOpen() {
var ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();
ui.createMenu('Color Tool')
.addItem('Sort by color...', 'sortByColorSetupUi')
.addItem('Clear Ranges','clearProperties')
.addToUi();
}
I use modeless dialog boxes for the prompts, which allows the user to still interact with the Sheet and click directly on the cells they want to select.
/**
* Sort By Color Setup Program Flow
* Check whether color cell and sort columnn have been selected
* If both selected, move to sort the data by color
*/
function sortByColorSetupUi() {
var colorProperties = PropertiesService.getDocumentProperties();
var colorCellRange = colorProperties.getProperty('colorCellRange');
var sortColumnLetter = colorProperties.getProperty('sortColumnLetter');
var title='No Title';
var msg = 'No Text';
//if !colorCellRange
if(!colorCellRange) {
title = 'Select Color Cell';
msg = '<p>Please click on cell with the background color you want to sort on and then click OK</p>';
msg += '<input type="button" value="OK" onclick="google.script.run.sortByColorHelper(1); google.script.host.close();" />';
dispStatus(title, msg);
}
//if colorCellRange and !sortColumnLetter
if (colorCellRange && !sortColumnLetter) {
title = 'Select Sort Column';
msg = '<p>Please highlight the column you want to sort on, or click on a cell in that column. Click OK when you are ready.</p>';
msg += '<input type="button" value="OK" onclick="google.script.run.sortByColorHelper(2); google.script.host.close();" />';
dispStatus(title, msg);
}
// both color cell and sort column selected
if(colorCellRange && sortColumnLetter) {
title= 'Displaying Color Cell and Sort Column Ranges';
msg = '<p>Confirm ranges before sorting:</p>';
msg += 'Color Cell Range: ' + colorCellRange + '<br />Sort Column: ' + sortColumnLetter + '<br />';
msg += '<br /><input type="button" value="Sort By Color" onclick="google.script.run.sortData(); google.script.host.close();" />';
msg += '<br /><br /><input type="button" value="Clear Choices and Exit" onclick="google.script.run.clearProperties(); google.script.host.close();" />';
dispStatus(title,msg);
}
}
/**
* display the modeless dialog box
*/
function dispStatus(title,html) {
var title = typeof(title) !== 'undefined' ? title : 'No Title Provided';
var html = typeof(html) !== 'undefined' ? html : '<p>No html provided.</p>';
var htmlOutput = HtmlService
.createHtmlOutput(html)
.setWidth(350)
.setHeight(200);
SpreadsheetApp.getUi().showModelessDialog(htmlOutput, title);
}
/**
* helper function to switch between dialog box 1 (to select color cell) and 2 (to select sort column)
*/
function sortByColorHelper(mode) {
var mode = (typeof(mode) !== 'undefined')? mode : 0;
switch(mode)
{
case 1:
setColorCell();
sortByColorSetupUi();
break;
case 2:
setSortColumn();
sortByColorSetupUi();
break;
default:
clearProperties();
}
}
The buttons on the dialog boxes use the client-side google.script.run API to call server-side Apps Script functions.
Following this, the google.script.host.close() is also a client-side JavaScript API that closes the current dialog box.
These two functions save the cell and column ranges that the user highlights into the Sheet’s property store:
/**
* saves the color cell range to properties
*/
function setColorCell() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var colorCell = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveRange().getA1Notation();
var colorProperties = PropertiesService.getDocumentProperties();
colorProperties.setProperty('colorCellRange', colorCell);
}
/**
* saves the sort column range in properties
*/
function setSortColumn() {
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var sortColumn = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveRange().getA1Notation();
var sortColumnLetter = sortColumn.split(':')[0].replace(/\d/g,'').toUpperCase(); // find the column letter
var colorProperties = PropertiesService.getDocumentProperties();
colorProperties.setProperty('sortColumnLetter', sortColumnLetter);
}
As a result of running these functions, we have the color cell address (in A1 notation) and the sort/filter column letter saved in the Property store for future access.
Once we’ve selected both the color cell and sort column, the program flow directs us to actually go ahead and sort the data. This is the button in the third dialog box, which, when clicked, runs this call google.script.run.sortData();.
The sortData function is defined as follows:
/**
* sort the data based on color cell and chosen column
*/
function sortData() {
// get the properties
var colorProperties = PropertiesService.getDocumentProperties();
var colorCell = colorProperties.getProperty('colorCellRange');
var sortColumnLetter = colorProperties.getProperty('sortColumnLetter');
// extracts column letter from whatever range has been highlighted for the sort column
// get the sheet
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
var lastRow = sheet.getLastRow();
var lastCol = sheet.getLastColumn();
// get an array of background colors from the sort column
var sortColBackgrounds = sheet.getRange(sortColumnLetter + 2 + ":" + sortColumnLetter + lastRow).getBackgrounds(); // assumes header in row 1
// get the background color of the sort cell
var sortColor = sheet.getRange(colorCell).getBackground();
// map background colors to 1 if they match the sort cell color, 2 otherwise
var sortCodes = sortColBackgrounds.map(function(val) {
return (val[0] === sortColor) ? [1] : [2];
});
// add a column heading to the array of background colors
sortCodes.unshift(['Sort Column']);
// paste the background colors array as a helper column on right side of data
sheet.getRange(1,lastCol+1,lastRow,1).setValues(sortCodes);
sheet.getRange(1,lastCol+1,1,1).setHorizontalAlignment('center').setFontWeight('bold').setWrap(true);
// sort the data
var dataRange = sheet.getRange(2,1,lastRow,lastCol+1);
dataRange.sort(lastCol+1);
// add new filter across whole data table
sheet.getDataRange().createFilter();
// clear out the properties so it's ready to run again
clearProperties();
}
And finally, we want a way to clear the properties store so we can start over.
This simple function will delete all the key/value pairs stored in the Sheet’s property store:
/**
* clear the properties
*/
function clearProperties() {
PropertiesService.getDocumentProperties().deleteAllProperties();
}
If you put all these code snippets together in your Code.gs file, you should be able to run onOpen, authorize your script and then run the sort by color tool from the new custom menu.
Here’s the sort by color tool in action in Google Sheets:
You can see how all of the green shaded rows are sorted to the top of my dataset.
Note that this sort by color feature is setup to work with datasets that begin in cell A1 (because it relies on the getDataRange() method, which does the same).
Some improvements would be to make it more generalized (or prompt the user to highlight the dataset initially). I also have not included any error handling, intentionally to keep the script as simple as possible to aid understanding. However, this is something you’d want to consider if you want to make this solution more robust.
Here’s the Google Sheet template for you to copy.
(If you’re prompted for permission to open this, it’s because my Google Workspace domain, benlcollins.com, is not whitelisted with your organization. You can talk to your Google Workspace administrator about that. Alternatively, if you open this link in incognito mode, you’ll be able to view the Sheet and copy the script direct from the Script Editor.)
If GitHub is your thing, here’s the sort by color code in my Apps Script repo on GitHub.
The program flow is virtually identical, except that we filter the data rather than sort it. The code is almost exactly the same too, other than variable names being different and implementing a filter instead of a sort.
Rather than sorting the data, we create and add a filter to the dataset to show only the rows shaded with the matching colors:
The filter portion of the code looks like this:
// remove existing filter to the data range
if (sheet.getFilter() !== null) {
sheet.getFilter().remove();
}
// add new filter across whole data table
var newFilter = sheet.getDataRange().createFilter();
// create new filter criteria
var filterCriteria = SpreadsheetApp.newFilterCriteria();
filterCriteria.whenTextEqualTo(filterColor);
// apply the filter color as the filter value
newFilter.setColumnFilterCriteria(lastCol + 1, filterCriteria);
If you want a challenge, see if you can modify the sort code to work with the filter example.
Feel free to copy the Google Sheets filter by color template here.
(If you’re prompted for permission to open this, it’s because my Google Workspace domain, benlcollins.com, is not whitelisted with your organization. You can talk to your Google Workspace administrator about that. Alternatively, if you open this link in incognito mode, you’ll be able to view the Sheet and copy the script direct from the Script Editor.)
Or pull the code directly from the GitHub repo here.
Best wishes to all of you for 2021!
Let’s hope for a brighter, happier, safer lap around the sun this time.
This is annual review number 6!
As always, I’m super grateful when I sit down to write this because it means I’m still working for myself and building this business.
2020 was a difficult year for the world.
I’m fortunate to have my health and so do those close to me. I can’t imagine how difficult 2020 has been for those who have lost someone. My heart goes out to you.
My wife and I have taken the virus seriously. Given my history of pneumonia in the last two years (see challenges of 2018 and 2019) I can’t afford to take this virus lightly.
We’re extremely fortunate that we already work from home, so that didn’t present a significant challenge when the whole world went remote. However, going from full time childcare to no childcare was certainly a challenge.
I’m looking forward to 2021 and the promise of a vaccine. I haven’t seen my UK family since January 2020 and I miss them (and the UK) terribly.
I’m cautiously optimistic that 2021 will be better, and make up for the annus horribilis that was 2020.
With that, let me present my review of the year:
Overall, given the circumstances – I probably had 50% fewer working hours this year because I spent that time with my kids – I’m really happy with what I achieved and feel positive about how the year went from a work perspective.
2020 felt like a long year. Events from the start of this year feel like they happened years ago. I feel like I aged 10 years!
But despite the terrible toll the pandemic exacted on us all, there were plenty of highlights throughout the year.
In no particular order:
I hired the super talented team at Left Hand Design to do a rebrand for my business and courses.
I wanted something simple, bold and geometric, and I think Left Hand Design did an outstanding job.
Over the course of a couple of months, they created new family of logos, new color scheme, fonts and styles for my entire online presence. They created new images for my courses and a new slide deck template for the lessons.
I also need to credit my wife, Alexis Grant, for the green dot over the “i”, a wonderful addition!
This new brand represents a huge leap forward for my business.
In March this year I ran my most ambitious project to date: SheetsCon, a 2-day online conference for all things Google Sheets.
When I planned the conference in late 2019, way before any of us had heard of Coronavirus, I envisioned an online conference so that people from all over the world could participate, free of charge.
SheetsCon ran on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th March. My sons had their last day at preschool on the 13th March, because it shut down the following week. We all went into lockdown that weekend.
The timing of an online conference in March might have looked prescient from the outside, but I can promise you it wasn’t planned that way because of Covid.
The event was a massive success; we had almost 7,000 registered attendees, 3,800 of whom attended live, and 89.5% of whom said they’ll return in 2021.
Watch the 2020 SheetsCon replays for free here.
Read about what happened behind-the-scenes to make SheetsCon happen.
It was a huge amount of work. I’m glad I didn’t realize that when I embarked because I might not have done it!
It’ll be easier in some ways in 2021 as I have a blueprint to follow. However, I’m looking to make it bigger and better.
See you there, on 24th and 25th March 2021!
I only added one new course this year: Google Sheets Essentials.
But I also updated every course in my catalog*, to reflect the changes in the Google Sheets and Apps Script environments.
This was a huge project to re-record over 300 videos and create new templates. It occupied me for most of the year!
* at the time of writing, I’m in the process of updating the Automation with Apps Script course, which is the final one to update.
My favorite posts of the year are the ones that nourish me intellectually.
This year, my favorite ones to research and write were:
My email list has grown from around 30,000 at the beginning of the year to over 38,000 by year end, after removing over 8,000 inactive subscribers part way through the year (the steep drop).
Email continues to be my main marketing channel, and the list grew steadily throughout the year. I get about 40 – 50 daily signups for the Google Sheets Tips newsletter, which goes out at 11am every Monday.
I sent 51 Google Sheets Tips newsletters this year, only skipping the Christmas week.
2020 saw formula challenges #3 and #4, with formula challenge #5 straddling the Christmas holiday break.
As a surprise, my dad printed me a physical copy of tips 1 to 100! Thank you!
I’m grateful to all of you who read this website, open my Google Sheets tips newsletters or learn from one of my online courses. It’s a great privilege to share my teachings with the world. I love my work and hope to serve you for years to come. Thank you! 🙏
I’m also extremely grateful to the Google Developer Expert Workspace group and the Googlers I’ve gotten to know over the past few years. It’s been a real pleasure to learn from you all and I’m humbled to be included in such a wonderful and knowledgeable group. Cheers to future collaborations!
I set up my dream office in 2020.
Being a dad!
Spending lots of time with my two young sons this year and watching them blossom, despite the difficult circumstances. Yes, it’s been frustrating and challenging at times, but it’s impossible to put into words how much I love these two little guys and want to do my best for them.
(We even made spreadsheets together 😉)
We had a wonderful week at Deep Creek Lake with my wife’s family in August. It was relaxing and we got to be mostly normal for a week, and socialize with more than just my immediate family four. We enjoyed time on the lake, some great hikes, fires and BBQs!
Locally, I’ve done tons of hiking on our local trails. I can walk miles in either direction along the Appalachian Trail from my doorstep, so I’m really fortunate in that regard. Most recently, I had a great hike up the mountain during the December snowstorm and rounded out the year with a 19-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail with my wife.
Oh boy!
2020 was an incredibly challenging year for everyone. I’m grateful that I, and those close to me, have remained healthy this year.
Aside from staying healthy and isolating, the biggest challenge for my wife and me was the lack of childcare.
We had no childcare in April or May, some in June to August, and then about 28 hours/week since September-ish. Since we both have our own businesses and are ambitious, it’s been a tricky balancing act.
I’m super focussed on doing just a few things as well as I can, so I condensed my entire 2021 plan onto a single whiteboard.
Obviously, this only covers the big ticket items, and not things like the blog posts. I find it incredibly helpful to have it written down though. I look at every day to keep me focussed.
My big initiative for 2021 is to create a cohort-based course for Google Sheets and data analysis, tentatively called ProSheets.
It’ll consist of two live classes and office hours each week for 5 weeks, with a project to finish. You’ll be in a cohort with other students going through the same transformation, so you’ll have a peer group to be accountable with. You’ll leave the course as a pro with Google Sheets, how to solve business and data analysis problems from end-to-end, and have an amazing group of peers to continue learning with. More details to come in early 2021!
To make this new course as successful as possible for students, I’m joining two training programs myself in early 2021. They are: 1) the Keystone Accelerator course, a course/mastermind with other ambitious creators looking to start cohort courses, and 2) the Scaling Intimacy workshop, all about how to create memorable online experiences. I’m super excited about both and can’t wait to put these lessons into practice.
Finally, my biggest thanks are reserved for you, dear reader.
It’s an extreme honor and privilege for me to help you through my writing and teaching.
My work to create the world’s best resources for learning Google Sheets and data analysis is just getting started.
Best wishes to all of you for 2021!
Cheers,
Ben
Happy Holidays!
Growing up, I vividly remember sitting in my dad’s home office after school, waiting for him to get home from work.
The office had a tall ceiling and a single window at the back that opened into a tiny access courtyard between our house and the neighbor’s house (it was a semi-detached Victorian).
My dad sat behind a heavy wooden desk, with a big, boxy desktop computer sitting atop. On one wall was a bookshelf, full of computer books and boxes of floppy disks for illustrious programs like Microsoft Windows, Lotus 1-2-3, Borland Quattro Pro, and many others I’ve forgotten.
I would pull the thickest manual off the shelf and ask dad to explain it to me the minute he got home from work. I’m sure it’s just what he wanted to do at the end of a long work day. Sorry (but not sorry) dad!
I’ve wanted my own work space, reflecting my personality and overflowing with books, ever since.
I’ve worked for myself for 5 years now, so I’m used to working from home.
For the first couple of years, I worked from a small desk in the living room and then the basement of where I lived at the time.
When my wife and I moved to Florida in 2017, I rented a 1-person office in downtown St. Petersburg. My youngest son was only a few months old so I needed a quiet space to record videos. (I launched my first online course in 2017.)
I customized that rental office to make it my own. The first investment was a Fully Jarvis standing desk, which I still use and love today.
Last year, we moved to Harpers Ferry, WV, and it was a chance to set up a new office. The only change was the better scenery out my window and a couple of pieces of artwork on the walls.
This year, 2020, we moved out of the rental house and into our own home, so it was finally time to build the dream office. This is iteration three of my home office.
I’ve come to realize that the environment in which you do your work is important.
To do my best work I need to clear my mind out first. If there’s clutter everywhere, which is most days since I have young kids, then my mind is using energy to think about it. In my head, I’m doing a virtual Maire Kondo where I sweep it all away and out of sight.
My office is one space I have control over though. I can set it up to be clean and minimal.
Today, I’m much more sure of who I am and what I do than at any previous stage in life. And that translates into being able to create a workspace that facilitates the work I do now.
My 2014 MacBook Pro is 6 years old and showing its age.
I don’t do a lot of heavy-duty computing, but I do work with large video files. And of course, I have a lot of Chrome tabs open at any given time.
The time from deciding I needed a new computer to actually purchasing one was about 12 months!
I spent a LOT of time researching options and looking at other’s setups.
But it wasn’t until I saw this Mac Mini and Ultra widescreen setup that I found what I was looking for. This was the perfect setup for me.
Here’s my current home office setup:
I’m using the new Apple Mac Mini with the M1 chip, powering 2 monitors: an ultrawide Dell U3419W (supported by a Fully Jarvis monitor arm) and an Acer R240HY.
The microphone is a Blue Yeti on a Blue Compass arm, and the light is an Elgato Key light.
Everything sits on Fully’s Jarvis standing desk, which I’ve had for years and love.
So far, it’s a fantastic combination! Super fast, quiet and tons of real estate.
That’s a Lego Saturn V rocket on the window ledge, one of the greatest Lego models of all time.