Developers and AI
Working with Sheets and Docs from an assistant
Real prompts that get real work done, how cells are addressed, what the assistant cannot see, and where it goes wrong.
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The tools are dull on their own. What makes the connection worth having is that you can describe a piece of work in a sentence and get a document or a spreadsheet out of it, in your workspace, where the people you work with already are. Below are prompts that behave predictably, and the handful of rules that explain the surprises.
Filling and reading a spreadsheet#
Cells are addressed the way you would address them yourself: A1, B7, C3. Columns run A to Z, then AA, AB and so on, and rows start at 1. Values can be text, numbers, or a formula starting with an equals sign. Absolute references with a dollar sign work as they do in Excel.
Make a Nemi Sheet called "Q3 shoot costs" with columns Date, Client,
Hours, Rate and Total, and put a total row at the bottom that sums the
Total column.
In the sheet "Q3 shoot costs", set the rate in every row to $B$1 so I can
change it in one place.
Read "Q3 shoot costs" and tell me which client accounts for the most hours.When the assistant reads a sheet it gets two things per cell: the stored value, which is the formula text if there is one, and the calculated result. So it can both tell you what a number is and tell you where the number came from.
| Worth knowing | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Only the first tab is reachable | A workbook with several tabs works fine in the editor, but the assistant reads and writes the first one. Ask it to work in a separate sheet if your second tab matters. |
| Values and formulas, not formatting | Bold, colours and column widths are yours to set in the app. The assistant sets what a cell contains. |
| An empty string clears a cell | That is how you ask it to wipe something without deleting the sheet. |
| The grid grows by itself | Writing to a cell beyond the current edge expands the sheet rather than failing. |
| There is no partial range write | It reads the sheet, changes the cells it means to change, and writes those back. Two people editing the same cells at the same moment can therefore surprise each other. |
The formula engine is Nemi's own and covers the common ground rather than all of Excel: SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, ROUND, IF, IFS, IFERROR, COUNTIF, SUMIF, TEXTJOIN, LEFT, MID, SUBSTITUTE, TEXT, TODAY, EOMONTH, VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, INDEX and MATCH among others. The whole list, with what each one takes, is in Formulas. Ask for something outside it and the cell shows #NAME?.
Creating a document and adding to it#
Create a Nemi Doc called "Kickoff notes, Van Dijk" with a heading per
agenda item and a checklist under each one.
Append today's decisions to the end of "Kickoff notes, Van Dijk" as a
dated section, and leave the rest of the document alone.
Read "Client brief" and rewrite the second section to be half as long.Documents travel as Markdown in both directions: headings, bold, italic, strikethrough, highlight, inline code, code blocks, links, images, quotes, ordered and unordered lists, task lists, tables, rules and hard line breaks. What comes back out is what the editor shows, so a round trip does not quietly flatten your formatting.
- Append is the safe verb. Ask for an append and only the end of the document changes. Ask for an edit and the assistant reads the document, rewrites it, and sends the whole thing back, so anything it misunderstands it overwrites.
- There is no partial edit underneath. "Change one sentence" is always read, edit, replace, which is why the instruction above says to leave the rest alone.
- The title follows the first heading. Until you rename a document by hand in the app, its name tracks the first big heading in the body. If you ask for one title and a different opening heading, the heading wins.
- A restore is one click away. Every save goes into version history, so a rewrite you did not want can be put back. See Version history.
Getting files in and out#
Text is easy: ask for a CSV, a JSON file or a Markdown file and the assistant writes it straight into a folder you name, up to 10 MB. Pictures, PDFs and video are different, because pasting bytes into a chat is slow and expensive. For those the assistant asks Nemi for a one time upload link and either uploads to it or hands it to you.
You ask for a file to be added
A photo, a PDF, an export from somewhere else.
The assistant asks for an upload link
A one time link into the folder you named, good for an hour.
The bytes are uploaded
By the assistant if it holds the file, or by you with the link it gives you.
The upload is confirmed
Only then does the file appear in your workspace, with its real size read from storage.
| Route | Good for | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Written from text | Notes, CSV, JSON, code, Markdown | 10 MB |
| Pasted inline | An icon, a screenshot, a small PDF | 1 MB |
| One time upload link | Photos, PDFs, audio, archives | 50 MB per file |
| The browser, or an upload link | Anything larger, including video | Your plan's file size limit, up to 200 GB |
When it goes wrong#
- It changed more of the document than you meant. That is the replace behaviour. Open version history and restore the revision from before, then ask again with "append" or with the exact section named.
- It says it cannot find the sheet. Sheets and Docs are per workspace. Ask it to list your workspaces and work in the right one, especially if you keep client work separate.
- A cell shows `#NAME?` or `#REF!`. The formula used a function Nemi does not have, or pointed at a range that is not there. Ask for a simpler formula, or fix the cell yourself in the editor.
- It refuses to write. In a workspace where your role is read only, the server refuses the write, not just the interface. See Members and roles.
- Nothing works at all any more. Check the plan is still active, then reconnect the connector in your assistant so it reads the tool list again. Still stuck: support@nemilab.com, with the prompt you used and what came back.
Related
Still stuck? Email support@nemilab.com and tell us what you were trying to do.