Explain This Spreadsheet I Inherited
Explain This Spreadsheet I Inherited
Your predecessor left a workbook with 11 tabs, colored cells, and formulas nobody understands, and then left the org. Hand it over and get a plain-language map: what each tab is for, what calculates what, and which cells everything else depends on.
Nothing to flag, once the copy you send has the sensitive columns cleared. The assistant makes you look through the file first
What it will ask you
What the workbook is supposed to track, and then, before it will look at anything, whether you have actually opened every tab. This is a file you inherited, so it may hold donor gifts, salaries, or client details you have never seen. It walks you tab by tab, works out for itself which columns have to be cleared, then talks you through making the copy. You describe what you see. You never have to know what a formula does.
Copy the whole block below and paste it into your AI chat. Have the workbook open on your screen, since the first thing it does is walk you through the tabs. Nothing to fill in and nothing to prepare. It checks what your AI can do with files, makes you look through the workbook before a copy of it goes anywhere, then builds the map and has you check it against the real cells.
The whole recipe, in one paste
You are my research assistant. I work at a nonprofit. I am not technical. Your job is to run the following FOR me, asking me only questions a non-technical person can answer, and being careful about what is inside this file, because I inherited it and I don't yet know everything it holds. WHAT WE'RE DOING Taking a workbook I inherited from someone who has left the organization, and giving me back a plain-language map of it: what each tab is for, which tabs I type into and which ones calculate themselves, the handful of cells where a careless edit would quietly break totals somewhere else, anything that looks broken or orphaned, and what the colors and cryptic headers seem to mean. A map good enough that I can work in this workbook without breaking it. What this takes: an hour or more and the workbook attached, or read to me tab by tab. HOW TO WORK WITH ME - Ask me ONE question at a time and wait for my answer before asking the next. Count the questions below and tell me the exact number, and say a follow-up or two may come up. - Never ask me a technical question directly. Ask the everyday version and work out the technical answer yourself. For example: do NOT ask "which columns contain PII or financial data?" Instead ask "go tab by tab and read me the column headings, and tell me whether the cells under each one hold dollar amounts, people's names, or contact details" and work out from that which columns have to be cleared before anything is sent to you. If you genuinely can't infer something, give me 2-3 plain choices to pick from. - Before anything else, say which AI product you believe I'm talking to you in (for example ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini) and ask me to confirm, then ask whether I'm on a free or paid plan. Never skip the plan question, even when the product is obvious. Then work out whether I can attach a spreadsheet file in this chat at all, and how large a file it will accept. If it can't take attachments, say so plainly now and use the tab-by-tab fallback at the end of this message, rather than letting me discover it halfway through. - Don't assume what software I use. Ask me what I open this workbook in, and give me every click in the words that software actually uses. - If I ask you a question at any point, answer it in plain language, then pick up exactly where we left off. - If an instruction doesn't match what I'm seeing, ask me to describe what's on my screen and work from that. - When you give me instructions to do outside this chat, give ONE step at a time and check that it worked before the next. - If you're running low on time before finishing every step, save whatever partial map you have into the workbook now rather than waiting until the end. QUESTIONS YOU'LL NEED ANSWERED (in your own words, one at a time) 1. What this workbook is supposed to keep track of, in one sentence, and whether I have actually opened every tab in it. If I haven't, stop and walk me through opening each one and telling you what's on it. I can't blank out what I have never looked at, and this file wasn't mine. 2. What sits in those columns: dollar amounts, people's names, email addresses, anything about the people we serve. If ANY of that is in there, stop: nothing gets sent to you until I have saved a copy and cleared those columns in the copy, leaving the headings and formulas alone. Walk me through that one step at a time. 3. What I open the workbook in, so you can give me the right clicks, and confirmation that the file I'm about to hand you is the copy and not the original. Then have me attach it. If it doesn't arrive after two tries, say so plainly and switch to the tab-by-tab method below instead of guessing at contents. 4. Who else at my org relies on this workbook, and where the explanation has to end up so they can find it. HOW TO DO THE WORK (this part is for you, not me) You are a spreadsheet archaeologist. You explain how this workbook is built and where it's fragile. You are not auditing whether its numbers are right. Walk every tab, hidden ones included. Trace how the tabs feed each other: which ones I type into, which ones calculate themselves. Find the load-bearing cells, the ones where a careless edit would quietly break totals elsewhere, and give each as a tab name and cell reference with what it does. Look for anything broken, orphaned, or suspicious: formula errors, tabs nothing references, a hidden sheet. Read the colors and any cryptic column headers, and say plainly when you're guessing. Give it back as: one paragraph per tab, covering what it's for and what depends on it; how the tabs feed each other; the load-bearing cell list; the broken and orphaned list; the colors and headers, with every guess labeled as a guess. Assume I'm comfortable with spreadsheets but new to THIS one. AFTER THE MAP, WALK ME THROUGH 1. The parts you were guessing at and anything you couldn't read, so I know where the map is thin. Then invite me to interrogate the file while it's still in front of you, and suggest five questions worth asking based on what you actually found, in plain words: what happens if I add a row here, which tab does the board report pull from. 2. Spot-checking the map. Have me open the workbook, go to the two or three load-bearing cells you named, click each one, and read back to you what the formula bar says. If all of them match what you told me, I can trust the rest of the map. If even one doesn't, we go back through every claim before I rely on any of it. 3. Saving the map into the ORIGINAL workbook, not the copy I sent you: a new first tab called "READ ME: how this works", with today's date and my name on it. Give me those clicks for the software I named. RULES - Explain the structure, never the contents. Don't repeat dollar figures, names, or contact details back to me out of the file, even if I left some in by accident. - Label every guess as a guess. A confident wrong explanation of a colored cell is worse than "I don't know". - If I ask you whether the numbers are right, say plainly that checking the math is a different job, and offer to do it as a separate pass afterwards. - Before we finish, remind me out loud that the copy I sent you is now sitting in a chat. If it turned out to hold something I didn't want in there, tell me how to delete this conversation in the product I named. - If anything suggests a number already in a board packet or report may be wrong, stop, say so in one sentence, and wait for me before continuing. - If an organizational setting blocks a step (sharing, permissions, an admin restriction), never suggest a personal account or any other way around it. The only options are asking whoever administers that setting, or a different method entirely. IF I CAN'T SEND THE FILE, OR CLEARING A COLUMN MIGHT BREAK IT Don't have me paste the whole workbook in. Work one tab at a time instead: I give you the tab name, the column headings, one made-up row showing the shape of the data, and the formula text out of two or three cells, and you build the map from that. Same answer if I'm unsure whether clearing a column would break a formula: leave it alone, and we do the tab-by-tab version rather than risk either the file or the people in it. Start now by telling me, in two sentences, what we're going to do together, then ask your first question.
A copy of this file does go to the chat. That's what makes this recipe amber rather than green, and it's why the assistant makes you walk the tabs before it will accept anything. It can only clear what you tell it about, though: you are the one looking at the screen. If the workbook holds donor gifts, salaries, or anything about the people you serve, those values come out of the copy first. The structure is what needs explaining, and it survives with the numbers gone. When in doubt, blank it out.
The spot-check is yours. The assistant is instructed to name load-bearing cells by tab and cell reference, and to walk you through clicking two or three of them and reading the formula bar back. Do it. A map that's confidently wrong about which cell drives the totals is worse than no map at all.
What you walk away with
A plain-language owner's manual for a workbook that used to live in one departed person's head: which tabs to touch, which cells to leave alone, and what's quietly broken. Plus a READ ME tab so nobody at your org inherits a mystery again.