Link a Google Doc or Sheet as Your Training Plan

Simma sees what you did: every session your watch recorded, scored against your own history. A linked training plan adds what you were meant to do. Point Simma at the Google Doc or Sheet that holds the plan and its text is read into your coaching context each time that context is built, so an assistant can set the planned week beside the week that happened.

Where the plan comes from

The plan is yours to make, with a coach or with your assistant. A coach writes it into a Google Doc or Sheet, or moves the one they already keep into one. Or you sit down with Claude or whichever assistant you use, give it the event, the weeks you have and the days you can train, and build the plan together in a document you own; an assistant that can edit your Google Drive can write it there itself.

Writing the plan is coaching, and it stays with the coach or the assistant. Reading it against the sessions your watch recorded is the data work Simma does.

Share it with Simma

Simma reads through one Google service account. Share the document with it the way you would share with a person, using Google's Share button. Viewer access is enough.

plans-953@swim-328912.iam.gserviceaccount.com

Then copy the document's link, for example https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/…. Docs and Sheets are the only URLs accepted.

What that share gives Simma

The service account is an ordinary Google account that nobody logs into. It can open only what has been shared with it. It cannot list, search or browse the rest of your Drive, and with Viewer access it cannot change anything. Simma keeps the document's id, title and status, and reads the text each time it builds your context. Remove the share from the document's Share menu and Simma's access ends with it; the card then shows access lost until you share again or link something else.

If you keep several plans, or would rather not share files one at a time, make a folder called "Simma", share the folder with the address as Viewer, and keep your plans in it. Anything placed in that folder is readable by Simma, anything outside it is not, so keep the folder to plans. Google's guide to sharing files and folders covers the mechanics, including how to see and remove what you have shared.

Link it from your assistant

With the connector installed, hand the link to your assistant:

"Link this as my training plan: [the Google link]"

An athlete's assistant uses link_my_training_plan and unlink_my_training_plan; a coach's uses link_training_plan and unlink_training_plan, naming the athlete. If the document has not been shared, the tool returns the address above for the assistant to hand to you. The tools are described to the assistant as ones to confirm with you first, since linking replaces whatever is already linked. Unlinking never touches the document.

Then ask what you like:

"What does my plan have me doing this week, and what have I done so far?"

"Compare Priya's last two weeks with her plan and tell me where they differ."

Or in the web app

An athlete links their own plan under Settings → Coaching → Training plan (app.getsimma.com/settings/coaching); a coach links one from the athlete's settings, in the same section. The card carries the address to share with, a copy button, and a field for the link. There is one plan per coach and athlete, and both see it however it was made.

What happens when you link

Simma opens the document, reads its title and checks whether it holds any text.

A document with content links as active, a green dot on the card. A blank document also links, marked empty: an amber dot and note on the card, a warning when you press Link, an amber icon on a coach's roster, and in the context a sentence telling the assistant the document is empty, that Simma only reads it, and that the plan has to be written into it by the athlete, their coach, or an assistant that can edit the athlete's Google Drive. The link is kept, so once the plan is written Simma reads it on the next pass.

If sharing is later removed, the status becomes access lost and the card says to re-share; the next successful read sets it active again.

What Simma reads

From a Doc, the text, with each table row as one tab-separated line. From a Sheet, every visible tab in order, each under its own name as a heading, rows tab-separated, blank rows dropped, hidden tabs skipped. A season plan laid out one tab per month is read whole.

Up to 30,000 characters pass through unchanged; a month-per-tab season plan runs to about 20,000. Above that, Simma keeps what is dated from two weeks back to four weeks ahead: a section whose heading names a month outside that window is dropped, a row whose dates all fall outside it is dropped, and undated lines are always kept. The plan then arrives with a line saying which dates it was trimmed to. Dates are recognised as 2026-10-14, 14 Oct 2026 or 23rd November 2026, and month headings as October 2026. So, for a plan that may grow past the cap: name tabs by month with the year, and put a date on each session's row.

Where it goes

The plan arrives in the coaching context as a trainingPlan block: the title, Doc or Sheet, a link to the document, the text, whether it is empty, the Sheet's tab names, and the trim window if one applied. An athlete's assistant reads it through get_my_context, a coach's through get_athlete_context; get_my_profile and get_athlete_profile carry the link and status without the text. Simma reads the document afresh each time, so an edit made in Google this morning is what the assistant sees this afternoon.

The plan's title on the card, and the plan icon on a coach's roster, open the document in Google. An assistant gets the same URL as docUrl, so "open my plan" gets you the document itself.

Does Simma write to the document?

Simma never writes a plan and never changes the plan's text. One thing adds to the document, and only from the coach's web app: when a coach presses Draft Email, the draft compares recent weeks with the plan, and if it judges a sustained pattern worth a plan change and the sharing allows it, it leaves a note in the document. In a Doc that is a highlighted [Simma suggests: new text, reason] after the line concerned, with the plan's own words untouched; in a Sheet, a comment on the cell. That needs Editor access on a Doc or Commenter on a Sheet. With Viewer access nothing is written, and drafts an assistant writes through the connector never do this.

If something doesn't work

• "Simma doesn't have access to this document." Share it with the address above and link again.
• "Invalid URL." Only Docs and Sheets links are accepted; copy the address from the open document.
• The card says empty. Simma found no text. Write the plan into the document; the link already exists.
• The card says access lost. Sharing was removed or the file was moved. Re-share it, or link another document.
• A Sheet tab is missing from the context. Hidden and empty tabs are skipped. Unhide it.
• The assistant says the plan was trimmed. It is over 30,000 characters. Date the rows and name the tabs by month, or split the plan by season.

What should your assistant be able to do with a plan?

Today it can read the plan beside the training that happened. Tell us the next step: a week-end list of every planned session missed or cut short, a month-by-month tally of planned against completed volume, or a plan's Tuesday session turned into a workout on the watch. Email coaching@getsimma.com with the tool you want and we will build it.