Workbooks is now Spreadsheets
In this guide, you'll learn the basics of using Workbook compared to Spreadsheets.
What's New and Improved
Integrate Spreadsheets to ingest information from 3rd party software systems and easily manipulate data with connected sheets.
Build dynamic views with new features such as toggle indicators and cross-sheet formulas.
Real-time Collaboration
Automatically saved changes enable real-time collaboration—since there’s no need to save and share your edits, you’ll no longer see a Share button in your toolbar. Instead of sharing your edits, you can use the History panel to track revisions.
Conditional Formatting Panel
You can now find the Conditional Formatting features in the right panel, allowing you to add and manage rules in one place.
Classic
Next Gen
Cell History and Authorship
The History panel now includes individual cell history—not just links. You can now view the history of the entire spreadsheet or just a single cell.
Classic
Next Gen
View changes at a glance using the Authorship feature. This overlay highlights each edited cell in a different color to indicate all changes made by a certain author.
Cross-Sheet Formulas
You can reference a cell in another sheet by beginning your formula, navigating to the desired sheet, and clicking the cell you want to use.
Excel Importer
Directly import your Excel files into Spreadsheets to easily edit and share your data.
Work in a Spreadsheet
The key things you need to know to be up and running in minutes.
Navigation
When you first open your file, you’ll see two panels on either side of your presentation—these panels help you edit, collaborate on, and maintain your sheets.
Document Outline
The Document Outline is a list of sections in the left panel. Click on any section to navigate directly there, or drag and drop sections to reorder them.
- 1
- Using the section controls, you can promote, demote, and add sections to your spreadsheet.
- 2
- The filter tool allows you to filter your sheets and hide restricted sections.
- 3
- An arrow indicates subsections beneath that main section. Click the arrow to expand and collapse the subsection list.
Learn more about the outline in Spreadsheets Basics.

The Right Panel
The right panel lets you access several features:
Formats
The Formats panel lets you adjust the settings for your selected sheet. From here, you can change the cell fills and sheet-wide value formatting.
Comments
You can view all comments from the right panel for easy access and review. To add a comment, right-click a cell and choose Add Comment from the dropdown menu. Learn more about adding and viewing comments.
History
In Spreadsheets, all changes are automatically shared with collaborators. You can use the History panel to keep track of what revisions were made in a document and who made those changes. Additionally, the Authorship feature shows an overlay of which user edited a particular cell.
You can also view the history of an individual cell. Viewing Cell History gives you a list of all changes made to the selected cell, as well as who made those changes.
Share Your Spreadsheet with Others
The Publish button is how you make your link values available to others. Use the Publish feature to push your changes from source cells to destination links.
From the File menu, you can Save As, Import, or Export your files. Save As lets you save your spreadsheet as a new Workiva file or create a template from the current spreadsheet.
Import allows you to import external files into your current document, while Export lets you save your Spreadsheet as a CSV or XLSX file.
What's Next
Now that you've seen the next generation of Spreadsheets, here are a few things to help you get started: