Activity Dashboard: A Google Suite Tool for Collaboration

If you’ve ever seen the Upward Zig Zag Arrow icon on the top, right-hand side of your Google Doc, Sheet or Slide, and wondered what it is, this icon launches the Activity Dashboard. This dashboard can be helpful if you collaborate using Google Suite or assign Google activities to students.

Here is the icon, and it looks and works the same on a Google Doc, Sheet or Slide.

What can you use it for?

In a previous post, I explained that the Activity Dashboard is one of two ways you can email collaborators from a Google Doc. What I have since discovered is that I find it the superior method of starting an email. The File menu method begins with all collaborators selected for email, and the Dashboard method begins with no collaborators selected for email. If you’ve ever started an email from the File menu, accidentally deleted someone from your Send list, and had to abandon the email and start over, you’ll understand why I prefer the Dashboard method. I also like the fact that you can order your potential recipient list by name or last viewed date.

This brings me to another use of the Activity Dashboard: getting an overview of engagement. It is not a precise instrument, but it will give you an idea of who has accessed the document (by document I mean Doc, Sheet or Slide) and when. You might visit the Dashboard to see if you need to send out a reminder of an approaching deadline, or to confirm that most people have had a chance to access the document. You can also see viewer and comment trends, which may be useful in some circumstances.

If you are an Owner of the document, you can access the Sharing History for a reminder of who has been added or removed from the document. The Dashboard is also where you can adjust your Privacy Settings if you do not want others to see when you accessed all Google documents or this particular document.

What should you not use it for?

Do not use the Activity Dashboard to assess individual participation or performance. As mentioned, users can adjust their Privacy Settings to opt out of sharing their viewing history. The Dashboard also may fail to track some document access, particularly if the user still has the document window open.

What if all I can do from the Dashboard is adjust my Privacy Settings?

In that case, you only have View or Comment access to the document, and would need to ask for Edit access before you engage with the Dashboard.