Great video! I've been using subtables a lot, but unfortunately it's not possible to have it in published forms. It's probably due to security reasons, but I hope Coda adds a privacy option to toggle them on/off for the forms like they do with the persons dropdown etc. It'd make forms so much more useful for us e-commerce businesses who want to use it for letting staff register incoming deliveries etc, where the amount of boxes received always is different - or when getting a return where we need to specify certain info per product. Currently I've had to make like 10x3 fields for "Product 1", "Product 1 condition", "Product 1 quantity" etc. Sub tables in published forms would make that so much better and more dynamic.
Another note: The reason we want to use published forms instead of giving access to Coda is that a lot of the staff is temporary and we want to make sure they don't get access to sensitive information. By not having subtables in published forms we'd be forced to let them into Coda, which would be even worse security wise than exposing a subtable. :p
Watch my "advanced forms" video or my "Most complex workflow" video, both show a differenty style of form that should be able to support your workflow with subtables
I use these in the same way (Tasks and Notes within a Project). The lists of tasks & notes can get long and I wish there was more filtering flexibility on the sub-table. At the end of the day they are ridiculously handy and offer pretty serious operational efficiency for the business user. This might sound crazy, but every time I open a project and see the list of tasks in a sub-table along with the project progress meter, I feel like I’m in a video game and want to tackle the next task to level up. It’s one of those things that makes you feel clever when you use it (assuming you built it yourself).
The difference is as wide as the ocean and as vast as the milky way. Trust me - Its the difference between a scalable system that works for you and a frustrating tool the impedes your work. Canvases in Coda are to attach unstructured data to a row. Sub-tasks (or relationships, parent to child relationships, or in DB architecture they are called one to many relationships) need to be managed in a scalable and automatic way That is not what canvases are for. That is what a relation column in for@@ProfMattShane
Honestly, I don't love subtables. In theory, they're smart. But in practice I would much rather have my subtasks displayed nested (in the same parent table) under their parent task. This is particularly better when you have multiple layers of subtasks (something Coda handles poorly). Would love a nested task --> subtask --> subsubtask solution!
@@HippieP629 Every other project management platform has figured this out. Not sure why Coda had decided against it. Maybe for precisely the reason that you can't have subsubtasks in Coda.
I agree. Coming from Monday I really miss nested tasks. If coda wants to keep it non-nested (in separate tables), then we should at least get a new table view with rows that can expand in height to show the connected subtables.
Hi Scott, I have a question about this video. How do you filter such a subtable? To use your example of projects and tasks, unless I am missing something, your filter button will show the link between projects and tasks. If you wanted to add a date to that filter (to limit the tasks showing in the subtable), how would you do that? The subtable filter does not appear to let me add further filters. To solve that problem I have created a canvas field on the project table. Then I created a view of my tasks in that canvas field. Now the filter will offer me to link automatically to the parent table (projects) and I am then able to add my date range. The only problem here is the huge overhead in terms of maintenance, as I discovered that the canvas field will not automatically replicate the subtable for all projects. I have to do it manually for each project and the same will be necessary for future updates to my task view in that project.canvas.field. What other options do I have? Thanks! And thanks for all your videos which have been a huge help in shortening my learning curve.
Great video! I've been using subtables a lot, but unfortunately it's not possible to have it in published forms. It's probably due to security reasons, but I hope Coda adds a privacy option to toggle them on/off for the forms like they do with the persons dropdown etc. It'd make forms so much more useful for us e-commerce businesses who want to use it for letting staff register incoming deliveries etc, where the amount of boxes received always is different - or when getting a return where we need to specify certain info per product. Currently I've had to make like 10x3 fields for "Product 1", "Product 1 condition", "Product 1 quantity" etc. Sub tables in published forms would make that so much better and more dynamic.
Another note: The reason we want to use published forms instead of giving access to Coda is that a lot of the staff is temporary and we want to make sure they don't get access to sensitive information. By not having subtables in published forms we'd be forced to let them into Coda, which would be even worse security wise than exposing a subtable. :p
Watch my "advanced forms" video or my "Most complex workflow" video, both show a differenty style of form that should be able to support your workflow with subtables
I use these in the same way (Tasks and Notes within a Project). The lists of tasks & notes can get long and I wish there was more filtering flexibility on the sub-table. At the end of the day they are ridiculously handy and offer pretty serious operational efficiency for the business user.
This might sound crazy, but every time I open a project and see the list of tasks in a sub-table along with the project progress meter, I feel like I’m in a video game and want to tackle the next task to level up. It’s one of those things that makes you feel clever when you use it (assuming you built it yourself).
I love this! My default move would've been to add a Canvas and put the table on there - I see how this is better and more direct!
Way better! Don't ever put tables in a canvas if you need to repeat or happen all the time
@@thecodaguy This *looks like* a Canvas. What's the difference?
The difference is as wide as the ocean and as vast as the milky way. Trust me - Its the difference between a scalable system that works for you and a frustrating tool the impedes your work.
Canvases in Coda are to attach unstructured data to a row. Sub-tasks (or relationships, parent to child relationships, or in DB architecture they are called one to many relationships) need to be managed in a scalable and automatic way
That is not what canvases are for. That is what a relation column in for@@ProfMattShane
Honestly, I don't love subtables. In theory, they're smart. But in practice I would much rather have my subtasks displayed nested (in the same parent table) under their parent task. This is particularly better when you have multiple layers of subtasks (something Coda handles poorly).
Would love a nested task --> subtask --> subsubtask solution!
Agreed. Would much rather have a better way of seeing subtasks in the parent DB somehow instead of having to drill into the detailed view.
@@HippieP629 Every other project management platform has figured this out. Not sure why Coda had decided against it. Maybe for precisely the reason that you can't have subsubtasks in Coda.
Aren’t dependencies a way to have sub tasks?
I agree. Coming from Monday I really miss nested tasks. If coda wants to keep it non-nested (in separate tables), then we should at least get a new table view with rows that can expand in height to show the connected subtables.
@@seanolivas9148 A roundabout way, yes. But does that help with the integration of subtasks into a single table in Coda?
Hi Scott, I have a question about this video. How do you filter such a subtable?
To use your example of projects and tasks, unless I am missing something, your filter button will show the link between projects and tasks. If you wanted to add a date to that filter (to limit the tasks showing in the subtable), how would you do that? The subtable filter does not appear to let me add further filters.
To solve that problem I have created a canvas field on the project table. Then I created a view of my tasks in that canvas field. Now the filter will offer me to link automatically to the parent table (projects) and I am then able to add my date range.
The only problem here is the huge overhead in terms of maintenance, as I discovered that the canvas field will not automatically replicate the subtable for all projects. I have to do it manually for each project and the same will be necessary for future updates to my task view in that project.canvas.field. What other options do I have?
Thanks! And thanks for all your videos which have been a huge help in shortening my learning curve.
Notes:
None.