Layout syncing in Cross-Doc? (Also Privacy stuff...)

1

Context: I’m building a system for grant writers who work with multiple nonprofit clients. They’ll share info they’ve created in Coda with clients, and that info is private (i.e., they sign a non-disclosure agreement).

Issue: I’ve just discovered that sharing a page means sharing your entire doc (ugggggh whaaaaat???), which means in order to keep client data private, I’ve gotta use Cross-Doc.

This isn’t a HUGE problem - the basic functionality is there - but it isn’t great either, mostly because it doesn’t look like Detail Layouts transfer over.

The system I’m making relies heavily on the Detail view of a number of tables being tidy and intuitively laid out, and I spent a lot of time getting them right. Without them transferring over, that work will have to be done every single time the writer brings on a new client. Not great.

Question: Is there a solution to this?

Second Question: Are there any plans to improve sharing and privacy settings? Because that would solve everything.

1 Like
2

hi @Kelly_Claus ,
if you take a team plan, you can lock pages, that would make things easier for you I guess.
@joost_mineur wrote about the cross doc logic in previous posts relating to privacy settings.

the look & feel logic is something the Coda team should respond.
best, christiaan

3

Locking is the best you can do to improve privacy. But it’s not actual privacy, there’s still a way to recover the information. It’s just a superficial locking process, if someone’s technically competent they can extract the data from the doc when it has been shared with them

Cross-doc won’t really be a solution here because you can’t really create a template doc that brings in the data without manually creating OUT syncing tables.

1 Like
4

Hi @Christiaan_Huizer, thanks for your response! I upgraded to the team plan for this very reason, and I was disappointed to find out that I can lock pages, but can’t easily hide everything else. I’m more concerned about the pages not being visible at all than the content being locked. In fact, I want the user to be able to interact with the page in a lot of cases - click a button, etc., so locking is sort of disconnected from what I need. :confused:

Dream scenario:

  • Locking capability at the doc, page, table, and field levels.
  • Show the viewer/editor/whatever only the page(s) I’ve shared with them and nothing else in the doc.
  • Lock the filtering of a table so the viewer can only see what I’ve allowed them to see.

Seems simple enough, right? Just give me everything I want, Coda, I don’t see what the problem is.

5

Thanks also for linking to that post by @joost_mineur. All excellent points.

6

In another place I’ve asked for Doc views (@cnr is my personal account), which seems similar to what you’re talking about:

I’d contact Coda support, they might have some ideas for you

2 Likes