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Now You Can Assign Action Items in Google Docs, Sheets, & Slides

2 minute read

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The power of collaboration is amazing. But sometimes, when you’re working with other people on projects, ownership can get muddled. It’s hard to know who’s responsible for what task.

Google recently introduced action items to G Suite, which really streamlines the process of assigning tasks within your team. Now, assigning tasks is easier than ever before.

You can assign action items in two ways:

Use natural language processing (Docs only)

As you’re typing in Google Docs, if you type an action item like “Todo: Taylor to finish presentation” or “AI: Scott to schedule follow up meeting,” Docs will detect it and suggest an action item.

You can then choose to assign the suggested action item or dismiss it.

For action items to be suggested, the text must:

  • Mention someone’s name or email.
  • Mention someone with access to the file.

For more details, click here.

Manually assign action items (Sheets, Docs, Slides)

In Sheets, Docs, or Slides, you can manually assign an action item through a comment. Just insert a comment and mention your teammate’s email account.

action-items-screenshot-1

You’ll have the option to create an action item and assign it to them, which will send them a notification that there is a specific task that needs taking care of.

What happens when action items are assigned to someone?

This is what things look like from the other end:

action-items-screenshot-2

Now you can see a badge, which lets you know that there is an action item assigned to your account that needs your attention. This is how you will know when action items have been assigned to you, and that your supervisors or team members are relying on you to take care of a certain task.

Click here to watch this video on YouTube.

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