How to set up the work of Workspace members with one table (adding rows)

1

Hi!

I need different people from my workspace members to add information (rows) to the same table.
They should not work in the same document so they don’t see all the tables.

1 document (main) only for administrator with shared table A ( because it has private tables)
2 document with only table A for 1 person (shared with him for adding rows).
3 document with only table A for 2 persons (shared with him for adding rows).

I also need them to be able to edit the rows they add. What’s the best way to do it?

It seems to me that this can be done by Cross-doc actions.
I’m paying for Team plan, but I can’t use Cross-doc because I can’t find a suitable example on the forum. Please help me - I really need it!

Thank you very much in advance for your time!

2

Hello @11177 ,

I think that this is not possible. I personally don’t like cross-doc, so I might not be the best person to answer your questions, but you want the cross-doc to be editable from both sides of the cross-doc’d doc - and Coda is not really designed to do so (my opinion).

If you persist in making this work, I would take the following approach:

  1. the main doc/table is in your environment (administrator)
  2. new rows are added by means of a coda form
  3. you make docs with a cross doc table so people can see (a filtered) view of data that is meant to be seen by them
  4. updates are made by means of a coda form with prefilled data - on the backend (your doc) you build the logic to merge records and update the table.

Depending on the number of people that need to use this, it can get complicated in a hurry - you are talking about person 1 and 2, but if you are going to have tens of users, it will become very hard to maintain.

Without more information (is the table going to be very complex, how many users, relation ship to your users (are they going to try to hack your system?) it is not easy to answer your questions.

Good luck with your project,
Greetings, Joost

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3

Hi @joost_mineur

Thank you so much for your reply!
Where do you think you can find an alternative with these features?
Maybe smartsheet.com or some other one?

4

I would do it in Coda.

A ‘traditional’ application (built with a database backend and written in PHP or Delphi or C# or whatever) is really the best way to approach these things, but from what I hear in the way you ask your question, that is not going to be build by you. And you are probably not here because you can outsource a project like that.

Coda has limitations, but there will be many more updates and some will probably facilitate building better apps. I am waiting for 2 specific features that would help a lot for this type of problem:

  1. fine grained permissions (where some users can only see a small part of your doc)
  2. data protection: if it not on the screen, it shouldn’t be accessible (through browser tools, data sniffing or whatever)

But even today you can build very nice apps. You can cross doc filtered tables and update through forms. The answers to my questions in my last paragraph in my previous answer should guide you.

is the table going to be very complex, how many users, relationship to your users (are they going to try to hack your system?)

I am not sure if smartsheet can be of any help - I do know that it gets expensive when you start to have a few or more users. What I really like about Coda (among other things) is that you can have users of your app that don’t need a paid license - and that you can have as many docs as you want (at least, in my plan you can).

The one way to really find out is start building - start simple, make it work and add more features as you go. Or build something that looks like what you need and ask for some professional help here in the community - it might be worth some bucks if you can run your business better.

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