Smart Chips allows you to embed interactive information from other Google Workspace apps directly into a cell. By typing the @ symbol, you can link to people, files, calendar events, and places without leaving your spreadsheet.
Contents
Types of Smart Chips
There are several types of chips available in the “Smart Canvas” ecosystem.
| Chip Type | Description | Action |
|---|---|---|
| People | Links to a contact. Shows email, phone, and office location on hover. | Type @User Name |
| File | Links to a Doc, Sheet, or Slide. Shows a preview thumbnail on hover. | Type @File Name |
| Calendar Event | Links to a specific meeting. Shows time, location, and video link. | Type @Event Name |
| Place | Links to a Google Maps location. Shows a map preview and directions. | Type @Address |
| Finance | Shows stock price and trend. (Google Finance). | Type @Symbol |
Calendar Event Chips (vs Data)
Calendar chips are excellent for Project Management trackers. They allow you to link a specific row in Sheets to a meeting on your calendar.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Task | Meeting Link |
| 2 | Q3 Review | [đź“… Q3 Strategy Review] (Chip) |
đź’ˇ Problem: Manual Entry vs. Bulk Analysis
Smart Chips are designed for linking individual events. Searching for and inserting “@Meeting Name” one by one is clunky and incredibly slow for reporting.
The Solution: If you need to analyze thousands of events (e.g., “Total meeting hours for Q1”), don’t insert chips manually. Use the Calendar Importer Add-on.
It instantly imports your entire calendar history—with start times, end times, and attendees—directly into cells so you can analyze the data immediately.
The added benefit of using Smart Chips is that you can extract extra data from them, such as an email address from a People Smart Chip or the creator of a YouTube video for a YouTube Smart Chip.
How to Create Smart Chips
Using the @ Symbol
To quickly add Smart Chips in Google Sheets, simply type the “@” symbol followed by the chip’s content. For example, to insert a Place Smart Chip, you would type “@” followed by the location. As you type, a list of suggestions will appear. Select the desired chip to insert it into the cell.
The example above is a Place Chip. Start with the @ sign, then type the place’s name, which is the New York Stock Exchange. After Google Sheets correctly auto-fills the place, press enter. Google Sheets converts the location into a Smart Chip. Google Sheets places a grey pill-shaped background behind the text.
Now, if you hover the mouse over the Place Chip, you will get a preview of the location provided by Google Maps.
These previews, unique to each type of Smart Chip, provide a glimpse of the extra information available. In this case, the Google Sheets sidebar will provide directions once you give it a starting point.
A Place Chip allows the data to be used in other ways. For example, a list of starting and ending Place Chips would still work in our TripTally add-on for calculating driving distance and times.
⚠️ The YouTube Smart Chip is not available from the @ menu. To insert one, you must convert existing video URLs using the technique discussed below.
Convert Existing Data
Cells can also be converted to Smart Chips after the data is entered. However, you can only convert certain types of data. For example, an address must be a Google Maps link. Following is a list of data eligible for conversion to a Smart Chip.
| Smart Chip Type | Data |
|---|---|
| People | Email address |
| File | Google Drive file link |
| Event | Google Calendar event link |
| Place | Google Maps link |
| Finance | Google Finance entity (i.e. ticker symbol) |
| YouTube | YouTube video link |
Using Place Chips as an example, start with a Google Maps links. Go to maps.google.com, click on a location, and click the share button to get the link. The share button brings up a window with the link ready to be copied.
Once you have these links in your spreadsheet, you can convert them to Place Chips by hovering over them with the mouse pointer and clicking “Chip.”
Your Google Maps link is a now Place Chip instead of a plain text string.
Video Tutorial
Benefits of Using Smart Chips
Smart Chips offer several benefits, including:
- Increased accuracy: Smart Chips are a form of data validation. The Google Service suggests valid matches as you type. For example, you won’t misspell a contact’s name if a Person Smart Chip matches it to an existing entry in Google Contacts.
- Improved efficiency: Smart Chips store multiple points of data in one cell. They provide a cleaner interface with fewer columns.
- Extended functionality: Smart Chips hold additional information that can be pulled from the Chip with special notation or the menus. Read more about data extraction here.
Conclusion
Smart Chips are a powerful tool for improving the accuracy, efficiency, and functionality of your data in Google Sheets. I encourage you to try them if you haven’t already.