Saturday, February 25, 2012

March Madness Is Coming!!!

If you are as much of a basketball fan as I am then you are getting excited for March Madness!! But since this is a Blog devoted to Google Docs, I guess I should connect it someway.  Bracketology anybody? I'm currently working on a Google Docs based bracket that will take advantage of the =googletournament() function.

I'm working on two versions.  One version will be set so that you and your friends can compete against each other and have multiple brackets in a pool.  The other version is a single bracket so you can keep track of your own score!

Currently, features include automatic scoring, validated team choices so you can only choose the available teams for that certain game, customizable options, a standings view and information about each team and game!

The biggest hurdle is filling out the bracket.  Due to the current limitations of forms, a form input is just not feasible.  Filling out the bracket will require each of your team members to fill out their own bracket, or you can  share only their bracket using tab level permissions in spreadsheets.

Don't worry; there will be plenty of instruction on how to use it.  But stay tuned!

If you have any recommendations for features that you would like to see on the bracket please put it in the comments!

Cheers!

Monday, February 13, 2012

New Feature: Sparklines

Ever wanted to quickly see a trend in your data?  Want to add a quick small graph to a UI? Now you can with Sparklines!  Sparklines are a quick and dirty way to see a trend in your data IN a cell.  We can create quick line graphs and bar graphs using Sparklines.

See my example below that looks at average monthly temperatures for various cities in Nebraska, USA.

Note that you can change the background color and line color using the font/background color buttons from the editing toolbar.  I also created a little tool that quickly generates the sparkline for a given city using the drop down.  Enjoy and post any questions in the comments section!

To play around with this feel free to access this spreadsheet using the link below.  Make sure you go to File>Make a copy in order to see formulas and use the drop down feature of the city chooser tool.

Sparklines Example Spreadsheet

Also, you will see below that the embedded Spreadsheet does not show Sparklines due to a current issue with Publishing and Exporting.  Please see this post for updated information about the issue.  To see the Sparklines click on the link above.  Below the embedded Spreadsheet is a screenshot of what it looks like.

Cheers!



Screenshot: