Granular Permissions

This limitation stinks, but I guess I still land on Coda though for the “best” solution. Airtable gives you the granular permission, but you are paying for client users, plus you don’t have the doc features. You can do something custom, but then you have the expense of development and maintenance. There are options like Softr but you still have a steep learning curve, no native mobile app, and still need someone to maintain it. You agree?

Hi everyone, I have posted a new suggestion which might be helpful for some of you that also look for page (and possibly also block) visibility permissions: Page and Block Visibility Formula

I came from AT years ago and their speed is impressive, but I needed text and numbers so it became Coda. The permission logic you can solve with a webhook pack see below:

It is some work, not complicated.

Cheers,

Once again, this is the most frustrating issue in Coda for me. Here are some sample use cases

  • I built a Hiring System where the HR and Management teams have access to all candidates, but Engineering Managers can only access to engineering candidates, same with PM, Marketer Managers, etc. → For each manager, I have to create a different doc
  • I built an Performance Evaluation system → For each person I manage, I have to create another doc
  • I built a doc for admins, and now they want to share some specific pages with the interns for editing, but don’t want them to view other pages → Above are frustrating, but this is where I’m truly stuck

I’ve tried various workarounds and spent days trying to figure it out, but all have some kind of shortcomings. For instance, using Webhooks and parseJSON doesn’t work with Canvas or the tables inside the canvas.

I desperately want to know whether this is prioritized by the team.

Ps: I’m a big fan of Coda, but these permission issues are hindering me from taking further steps with my clients. I know this might not be easy to implment but I believe this is particularly important for users on Team and Enterprise plans.

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hi @Anthony_Thong_Do , merci for the feedback. The examples you give are practical and I share your view that we need a native solution to link data without sharing permissions in related docs to deal with the examples you mentioned. The webhook logic has its limitations, as does the embed logic as it is presented to us today (permissions on both sides need to be the same).

I hope a Codan can explain how (un) important solving this issue is withing the broader Coda context.

Cheers, Christiaan

3 Likes

@Anthony_Thong_Do thanks for sharing your feedback. We know content sharing is a very important topic for makers.

In June, my colleague @Ayuba_Audu shared a medium-term roadmap for secure content sharing. We’re now on bullet #3 and we plan to share more about this soon. Stay tuned.

Maybe it’s worth asking: do you see table permissions (e.g., permissions for specific candidates) as high a priority as page permissions? I saw you mentioned both.

2 Likes

Hi @Brian_Klein, just wanted to jump in and ask if you have seen my suggestion for a simple page access management system: Page and Block Visibility Formula

I think it would be much easier to implement than a custom solution and we would have much more flexibilty in how we restrict pages to certain users if we could just use formulas for it.

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Having a way to access control at the row and column levels would be brilliant. That way we can make sure to only show people what they should be seeing.

Then again, how would you keep Coda’s complexity from spiraling out of control if you satisfy everyone’s wishes?

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So far my state of elation is out of control :smile: Coda as a functional designer has no competitors. Yes, it has its problems. The latest update was a bit disappointing. But hopefully the developers will implement this functionality as well.

A software developer doesn’t need to fear this. Many people want many software developers to do more. Other developers allow users to enable one other to use only certain rows and columns. We can have public talks about such things.

Hey Julian, I’m not sure I understood your point. Do you mean that maybe this feature could be enabled only for advanced users, or through a development environment? That sounds intriguing

Rejoice!

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

It is here.