Coda's guess at "Time" column type for pasted data can't be undone

Suggestion Box Bugs
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As I mentioned here, Coda has a behavior where it tries to “guess” the column type for CSV data that I’m pasting into a predefined data table.

Unfortunately, the previous post is now closed, so I am reposting it here as I believe Coda’s behavior has developed to be even more problematic.

For my particular situation, I see these behaviors…

  1. CSV fields that only have digits have the Coda Table’s column type change from Text to Number,
  2. CSV fields that similar values have Coda’s Table’s column type change from Text to Select List,
  3. CSV fields that have text in the format of xx:yy have Coda’s Table column type change from Text to Time.

In the first two instances, I have to manually change the Column Type back to Text and sanity is restored. However, in the third instance, while this used to work, it doesn’t any more so a pasted value of “00:30” gets changed to “12:30 AM” and when I change they type back to Text it stays as “12:30 AM” instead of reverting back to the original value of “00:30”.

This evolution in behavior here, for the worse, is untenable. I appreciate the helpful “guess” that Coda is trying to do here for pasted values, but there should be a table-level option to disable this, especially when it is completely unhelpful as in the situation I outlined above.

At a minimum, the bug here, where the original value is not restored when Coda thinks it is a Time value, needs to be fixed so that I can continue to work around the remainder of the behavior. As it stands with this bug in place, I am completely stuck and can’t work with data and a document that used to work (albeit, in a less than desirable way).

Update: I also linked this via my contacting of Support via my doc and was informed it was logged as a bug but they’re unable to give me a timeline as to when it will be resolved.

Update: My client found a workaround that is worth sharing to others running into this problem. First, delete all data from the data table where you’re trying to paste data into. Next, paste 1 row into the table, change all the columns to the proper format, and manually adjust the time column. Finally, copy/paste the remaining rows. It’s not pretty, but it helps until the bug is fixed. :angry: (emjoi added at request of my client)

Update - 2023-12-13: My client let me know today that they pasted in their data into the table and all of the column formats did not change! This is great! Was the bug fixed @Nicole_Macdonald ? :heart_eyes:

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Hey Thomas! Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

We’ve gone ahead and filed this as a bug. Our team will investigate further and we will update you once it has been resolved. Since turnaround time varies depending on severity, we don’t have a clear timeline on when it will be completed. I apologize for any inconvenience in the meantime, but let us know if we can help you out with anything else!

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I am experiencing this also. I’ve been a paying Coda.io customer for over 3 years. In an effort to help your team assign “severity” I’ll share that this BUG is one of the primary reasons I’m trying to get off of Coda. Unfortunately we have built tools we depend on to run the business on Coda and it is taking a while. Having the platform change our data format, change they way you calculate data, or what format fields from a referenced table are, is too much. Quit changing the column formats. I know what column types I want when I create the table.

Please prioritize this BUG as SEVERE and get a fix out as soon as possible.

Thank you.

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Yes, I have been using that same workaround that Thomas_Robbs1’s client is for a couple of years. It’s much faster and easier to just open a CSV file but I can’t for the very same reason. Coda totally messes up my data on 100+ column table. Can’t wait for that to be fixed!

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I was about to suggest changing the time format to 00:00 before changing the column type from Time to Text but even THAT forcefully switches everything back to 12:00 AM

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Please @codahq, create a way to prevent the column type from changing.
It’s really cumbersome to change the type back all the time.
It would be great if we could lock the column so it doesn’t accept data type different from the one that was set in the first place. For instance, you can paste a image file in a date column if you want to.

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