In short: every spreadsheet in the suite has the same anatomy — Settings, Dashboard with traffic light, analysis, actions with a checkbox, history by ID, diagnostics and manual — so learning to read one means learning them all. You read from red to green, and the checkbox is the only door to anything irreversible: nothing runs unless you tick it.
The interface of every Suite script is a Google spreadsheet. They all follow the same anatomy, so learning to read one is learning to read all of them. This lesson is that lesson: which tab to look at first, what each colour means and how to approve an action.
Which tabs does a suite spreadsheet have?
| Tab | What it holds | When you look at it |
|---|---|---|
| Config | Goals, thresholds, scenarios, emails, TEST mode, the Active checkbox | When you install; when you change your criteria |
| Dashboard | A summary with a traffic light: the status of each account/campaign/product against the goal | Every Monday, in 2 minutes |
| Analysis tabs | The detail per item: search terms, keywords, products, placements, ad assets | When the Dashboard flags something |
| Action tabs | Proposals with an approval checkbox (pause, exclude, negate, publish) | Every week: approve or dismiss |
| History | Everything applied, with the date, the reason and the item's ID | To audit or to roll back |
| Diagnostics / Log | The trace of the last run, with errors highlighted | If something does not add up |
| Manual | How the script works, tab by tab, regenerated with each version | The first time; after an update |
What do the traffic-light colours mean?
The colours are consistent across the whole Suite:
- 🟢 Green: meeting the goal / healthy / no action needed.
- 🟡 Amber: keep watching; close to the threshold; thin data.
- 🔴 Red: missing the goal; action recommended; money at stake.
- ⚫ Grey: no data, paused, not included in the licence, or "Paused" by the Active checkbox.
Reading rule: you read the Dashboard from red to green. The reds take you to their detail tab; the greens you leave alone.
How do you approve an action with the checkboxes?
An action tab has rows with a proposal (what, why, on what data) and a checkbox. Ticking it = approving; on the next run the script applies the action, logs it in the history with its date and verifies it (checks in Google Ads that it went through). What you need to know:
- The checkbox is the only way the script will do anything irreversible (pause, exclude, publish). Without a tick, it only analyses and proposes.
- You can edit the proposal before approving it (a headline, a negative).
- A box left unticked for weeks = dismissed; the script does not nag.
- Anything approved can be rolled back from the history (the ID is right there) or in Google Ads.
What are TEST mode and the Active checkbox for?
- TEST mode (Config): the script does the full analysis and writes down what it would have done without touching the account. It is the starting state of every script that moves money. Turn it off once you understand its proposals.
- Active (a checkbox per account/campaign in some scripts): unticked, the script skips that item and shows it in grey.
Which patterns repeat across every spreadsheet?
- Numbers centred, text to the left, headers aligned with their data: that is not decoration, it is fast reading.
- Months written out («April 2026»), never ambiguous short dates.
- ID columns next to the names: the campaign is identified by ID; the name is only informative.
- Footnotes on every tab explaining the columns.
- Manual columns that the script preserves when it recalculates (sales, margins, ratings): write in them without worrying, they do not get wiped.
What should you review each week in five minutes?
- The script's email (if it sends one): anything red?
- Dashboard: from red to green.
- Action tabs: approve/edit/dismiss.
- Diagnostics only if the Dashboard timestamp is not from today.
- Close it. The script does the rest.
💡 Ninja trick: the spreadsheets are also the interface with the Agent: each script publishes a small range of indicators in its spreadsheet (the NS_KPIS) that the Agent reads to watch the fleet and summarise it by email. That is why it is best not to rename tabs or move blocks around: the spreadsheet is yours, but the scripts and the agent read it by position and by ID.
What you should remember
- Every spreadsheet has Config, a Dashboard with a traffic light, analysis, actions with checkboxes, history by ID, diagnostics and a manual.
- Read from red to green; leave the greens alone.
- The checkbox is the only door to anything irreversible; everything is logged in the history and verified.
- TEST mode first; manual columns preserved; names by ID.