Data-level comments

Comment on data and collaborate using mentions and replies

Data-level commentary is very common in real-life scenarios. In this section, we'll see how you can add data-level comments and the comments column, mention other users, reply to comments, star comments, and receive instant notifications on replies/mentions.

Both cell-level comments and comments column are written back to databases or shared drives.

During export, only the comments column can be exported to an Excel or PDF file. Cell-level comments are not exported, unlike notes.

1. Add a comment

You can add formatted data-level comments, which are saved securely to the database along with details such as author and time stamp.

1. Select a cell, row, or column. Then click Comments > Add New Comment to add a comment. Alternatively, you can simply click on the 'Comments' icon after selecting a cell/row/column to add a comment.

Adding a data-level comment

1. The comments editor opens up. Enter a comment as shown below.

Comment editor

1. Let's apply some formatting to the 'Revenue'. Select the text, click on the font color icon, and select a color from the color picker.

Changing the text color

1. The font color gets updated. Let us now add a hyperlink to the word 'document'. Select the text and click on the link icon.

Adding hyperlink

1. Enter the URL as shown and click Insert.

Entering the URL

1. The hyperlink gets added. Now, click on the Send icon to post the comment.

Posting a comment

1. The comment is added, and a green indicator appears on the top-right corner of the cell.

Comment Posted

The comment box includes several options, which are covered in the following sections.

2. Edit/Delete a comment

You can edit or delete your comments by clicking the pencil and bin icons, respectively, as shown below. Report owners and editors can also edit or delete comments added by other users.

Edit/Delete a comment

3. Lock comment thread

1. Certain comments can be locked to prevent editing and replies. To lock a comment thread, click on the three-dots icon and select Lock Thread.

Lock Thread

1. The comment thread is greyed out. To unlock the thread, click the Unlock icon.

Unlocking the comment thread

4. Delete all comments

To delete all comments, open the Comments dropdown and select Settings.

Comments - Settings

In the side panel, under the General tab, click Delete all comments.

Delete all Comments

5. Mention other users

You can use the @ symbol to tag other stakeholders and draw their attention​.

1. Select a cell and click on Add New Comment from the Comments drop-down. Type @ in the comment editor. You will see a list of users in the workspace.

Using @ mentions

1. Select the desired user(s), add the comment, and click on the Send icon.

Mention desired users

1. The comment gets posted successfully.

Comment posted successfully

6. Reply to comments

Users can reply to comments posted by others and have interactive conversations.​​

1. Click Reply to reply to a comment.

Reply to comments

1. Enter the reply in the comments editor and click the Send icon.

Reply added

1. The comment reply gets added as a thread.

Threaded comments

7. Comments column

You can add a dedicated comments column to capture row-level comments.

1. In the Comments dropdown, turn on the Show Comments Column toggle.

Turn on comments column

1. The Comments column gets added.

Comments column added

1. To add a row-level comment, click the cell beside it in the Comments column to open the comment editor. Enter your comment and click the Send icon.

Entering a comment inside comments column

1. The comment is added successfully, as shown in the image below.

Comment added

1. To reply to a comment in the Comments column, click the comment and select Reply. Add the reply and click Send.

Comments column supports replies

1. The number of replies added is displayed in the comments.

Comment with the number of replies

1. To hide the comments column, turn off the Show Comments Column toggle from the Comments dropdown.

Hide comments column

8. Roll-up comments

In reports with a large number of hierarchies, you can see comments rolled up at the subtotal and grand total levels, even if the hierarchies are collapsed. This enables executives to see collapsed and summarized reports but still see exception comments rolled up at the parent levels.

In the below image, comments are added at the brand and variant levels, which are consolidated and shown at the category level.

Rollup comments in parent level cell

Roll-up comments work in the Comments column too. In the image below, comments are added at the product category, brand, and variant levels, which are consolidated and shown at the category level.

Rollup comments in comments column

To enable roll-up comments, turn on the Show Rollup Indicator toggle from the Comments dropdown.

Rollup Indicator

9. Email notifications

The ‘@user’ mention in the comment automatically sends an email notification to the user, with a link to the report, so that the user can respond to this comment and update the report. Replies to the comments are also notified to the user instantly.

Email notification on user-mention

You can turn off email notifications for new replies or mentions by navigating to Settings from the Comments dropdown and unchecking the option highlighted in the image below.

Turn off email notifications for new replies and mentions

10. Starred comments

Starred comments help you highlight and prioritize important discussions directly on your data. By starring a comment, you can quickly identify items that need attention or follow-up. Starred comments are visually marked on the sheet and can be easily filtered in the All Comments panel. This makes it simpler to track critical feedback and collaborate more effectively.

You can mark a comment as starred while creating it by clicking the star icon, as shown in the image below.

Star a comment while creating it

You can also start comments that are already created. By clicking View All Comments from the Comments dropdown, the All Comments panel becomes visible.

View all comments

Once the All Comments panel is visible, a star icon appears on the right side of every comment, as shown in the image below.

Star icon

Select the star icon for the desired comment to mark it as starred. A star indicator appears on the corresponding data point, helping users easily notice and focus on important comments.

Starred comments

You can see that from the image below, the entire thread is starred.

Starred comment thread

In the next section, we'll see how you can assign tasks & monitor progress.