Today, we’re introducing a time-saving new column type: calculate. Calculate lets you populate a column with a formula using a structured builder based on other columns in the table or row properties. You can perform common column calculations like date, text, percentages, and more with just a couple clicks; the column type will automatically match the result type of the calculation.
Calculate builds on the simplification improvements we’ve made with linked relations, compose, and the /summarize table command to create powerful workflows in Coda without spending time writing and debugging formulas.
Even with this addition, your existing formula-based workflows will still be usable. You can also always toggle between the calculate structured builder and the formula builder through the column options dialog or write formulas directly when creating columns by typing =.
Additionally, we’ve made some updates to the column options menu, which will now be consistent across column types that dynamically fill values for each row (including calculate, compose, and AI). This secondary tab can also be used to configure and update existing sources that populate the column. We hope this added consistency helps provide you with a repeatable workflow when configuring a column.
We’re excited to see how calculate will make the Coda experience smoother for you and your collaborators! Try it out and let us know if there’s any other frequently used formulas you’d like to see added as a calculation — we’ll be making rolling updates to support additional calculations.
I love how you guys are really pumping out the new features and improvements.
I do feel like the last few have been geared more towards simplification of existing functionality. I assume this is what your user research shows as a need. However, I was wondering how you are expanding functionality for more of the power users?
Yes, while we’re currently focusing on simplifying parts of the product, we’re still committed to increasing the power of what our deepest users can do with Coda, especially when it comes to connecting Coda to other tools and building custom workflows. We’ll soon be launching 2-way sync capabilities for many major Coda packs and enabling Pack makers in our ecosystem to do the same. We’ll also be expanding the limits of Coda page embeds, working towards allowing seamless embedding of a page and all it’s subpages.
I hate this change. For power users who need to view, create, and edit formulas quickly this is hugely inefficient and now I can’t quickly access the formula area without several clicks and navigation.
Thanks for this new features. it makes a lot of sense to me.
It looks like the word “Calculate” is used a lot. There is a “Calculate” column type to pick when creating a column. One of the “Calculate From” choices is “Calculate”. That is a lot of use of the word “calculate”. I wish that there were a little bit different vocabulary thrown in there to differentiate between these three different levels where the word “calculate” appears. Maybe toss in the words “generate” or “compute/computed” into the mix?
For the “Calculate From … column” choice, will you eventually have chaining of operations or allowing multi-select, such as trimming a column value and converting it to lower case? Or do you expect people to user a formula for those use cases?
I found the name of the tab “Calculate” changing to “Fill Values” when I clicked the “Settings” tab to be disorienting.
For the “Fill values” choices, I would like to see “Formula” as a top level choice separate from the choices for column/row properties, along with “Calculate”, “Compose”, and “AI”. I like to use formulas and feel that they are distinct enough from column/row properties.
I wish that I could use formulas inside a “Compose” type. That’s a totally different ask. Just throwing it out there. For now, I will use either a formula with a text column, or I will create helper columns.
Thanks for the feedback Kuovonne! Really helpful as we work to make more improvements here!
One tip on your last point: within a Compose column you should be able to press equals to create a formula within the Compose content already, but let us know if there’s something else you’re looking for there!
Awesome! Works great. I was using the @ to include stuff based on what I saw in the UI, so I never tried =. Sounds like = works in way more places than some of us thought!
