How to use the awesome, new Data Extraction Smart Canvas feature in Google Sheets

There’s a ton to explore in the revamped Google Workspace apps. By adding dynamic and interactive Smart Canvas elements, Google is essentially rewriting Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail and more at their very core. Seriously, if you’re not using these features yet, you’re missing out big time.

While not yet available to everyone, a new ‘Data Extraction’ feature will certainly come as a welcome addition if you are just getting accustomed to inject file smart chips into your spreadsheets across your organization.

By clicking or right-clicking on a file smart chip in a Sheet cell, you can select the new ‘Data extractions’ option to open up the side panel and begin well, extracting data from the source document for use directly in the active Sheet.

Depending on what kind of information is available in the Doc, Slide, or linked Sheet, you will see relevant options in the side panel as “data to extract”. By checking a few boxes and clicking the blue ‘Extract’ button, you yank a copy of the information directly from the file in question and drop it into your workspace!

So, what would you use this for, exactly? Well, the possibilities are truly endless, and users will very likely think of their own use cases as they begin to integrate these tools into their workflow and team culture. However, if you need to interact with invoices or contracts you’ve linked in a column or row in order to quickly grab the information of the recipient like their name or address, for example, you won’t need to leave your active Sheet to do so.

This means no more tab clusters in Chrome as you juggle multiple files just to copy and paste bits of information! I can honestly see this coming in handy, and I do have several ideas for how to use this in a more creative capacity, but I’ll save that for another day.

If you’ve already gained access to this and are using it in any specific way, please let others known in the comments section! I’d also be interested in reading all about your implementation. Until this rolls out to everyone though, it’s a nice feature to gawk at since it’s so clever and powerful.