I’ve moved over from Notion where it was fairly straightforward but in Coda I’m still trying to figure out how best to structure everything so that I have easy access within a given project whilst being able to restrict access. Ideally I’d like to replicate my Notion setup which looks like this:
PROJECTS
Client 1
Project 1
Internal (not shared)
Budget
Brief
Notes
Client (shared with client only)
Project overview
Designs
Proposal
Freelancer (shared with freelancer only)
Shotlist
Revisions
Project 2 (structured as above
The idea is that the Client section in Project 1 (and all subpages) is shared with the client and the same goes for the Freelancer. Neither Client nor Freelancer has access to the Internal section or to anything other than their own respective sections.
So with the above in mind, what would be the best way to set this up?
Hey @ole_sturm ! Thanks for reaching out. While this is not possible at this time, this sounds like a feature request the Coda team has been tracking. That said, we have moved this post into the Suggestion Box for other members of the Community to chime in on this. We’ve gone ahead and tracked your vote for this feature formally.
So as it happens, I’ve had to go back to Notion as I just needed to have a system in place that could work for all these upcoming projects. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t move back to Coda once I’ve figured it all out.
With regard to the access, both the client and the freelancer need to able to edit in their respective nodes. For example, the freelancer would need to mark items as “done” whilst the client would need to mark items as “approved”. Beyond that there is also some interaction in the form of either the freelancer or clien needing to upload reference images or information.
With regard to your other question I’m not sure I fully understand the question. Can you elaborate?
@ole_sturm — sawubona, many thanks for your question and details!
I’ve recored a loom here, along with some sample docs below that should help answer your question and showcase some of what was behind @Piet_Strydom’s questions.
Project hub (source doc)
Client doc (container doc)
- Freelancer doc (container doc)
If you haven’t already, please read the sync page access control update I shared here.
Otherwise, do let us know what follow up questions you have and we’ll keep sharing updates as we have them, cheers!
Thanks for getting in touch. As I mentioned to Piet, I’ve had to move back to Notion for a while. I do however want to move back to Coda eventually once things calm down so I’ll probably be dabbling through your response.
Sorry I had to disappear like that but I needed an instant and easy solution for a while to work through some projects. I have a little more time now so am going to start with Coda from the ground up. One thing I’m wondering about is whether it’s best to set up one doc for ALL projects, regardless of client or one doc per client or one doc per project. I really want to avoid making the mistake on spending time on building a lovely structure and then discovering that it’s not the ideal approach.
To give you a little bit of an overview, I work as a sole trader, producing animation and VFX for documentaries and educational videos. I have a number of clients and each client has a number of videos on the go (currently 18 with just one client)
For each of these projects I have freelancers involved, sometimes on multiple projects at once.
What I need to achieve is:
A client page where the client can access stats etc for each project including status, hours worked by the freelancer, design submissions etc.
A freelancer page where they can access project stats including logging their hours, updating status and important info, task list/revisions page.
I need a central page where I have access to all the above but in additiona I need private pages for accounts and that sort of thing.
So with that in mind, what would your recommendations be? What are best practices that other people use? Any advice would be hugely welcome.
At this point in time, your only option is (in my opinion) one doc per cliënt. Coda is working on 4 stage plan to a better authorization scheme (current stage 2.x - meaning stage 2 is finished and certain parts of stage 3 are released). A lot of us are almost desperately waiting for stage 4, which should allow for one (master) doc and many related docs, each related doc with its own acces rules.
Until that happens, it is not an ideal situation for what you eventually want to accomplish.
Since there is not really an alternative for what we can do with Coda we just have to wait and see and make the best of what Coda has to offer (which, for me, still justifies waiting).
Greetings, Joost
Hey Joost, sorry for the delay. This one completely slipped through the cracks.
I am actually slowly moving everything back to Coda - I can’t put a finger on why but I feel that in the long run Coda is going to serve me better. Ultimately I’d love to manage the entire video production process through Coda but it’ll be a while given that I’m still figuring out what structure is going to be the most flexible (as some clients are very averse to anything that isn’t a spreadsheet). In the end it would be great to end up with something that I could pass on to other sole traders and freelancers in this industry - it’s just a mess out there.
Cheers.
