We are looking for en experienced Coda Developer (freelance or agency with single point of contact) that can be our “in-house” Doc Maker and expert in our current Coda solutions.
Payment by the hour and potentially a fixed monthly fee for being available for ad hoc support.
Our setup
We use Coda to run our entire building company. We have 4 Coda Docs:
- 1: Sales (office handling everything from inbound leads to making proposals and closing the sales)
- 2: Field sales (sales guys logging all information after a sales meeting)
- 3: Project planning (project leaders managing entire process of planning and staffing our projects)
- 4: Sub-supplier inputs (sub-suppliers providing input for our project planning, e.g. availability)
We use these packs:
- Cross-Doc
- Slack
- AppScript (to send emails with attachments through Gmail)
- Docmaker.co (to generate pdf files)
- A few packs to do minor functionality not native to Coda (e.g. compress images)
In addition we use Make.com to send data from our booking system (Cal.com) to Coda.
Your role
You will take over and have ownership of the entire solution = you will be the one core Doc Maker.
The current Doc Maker is me. I will be available for handover and ongoing questions. However, we are looking for a new Doc Maker (you?) as I will be going on maternity leave.
The solution is running stable and is not in immediate need for new development. The core assignment is to support the team using the solution (4 people). The team are users (editors) of the Coda solution, but not Doc Makers. They are using the system as was it any other system.
This means they will typically have questions within the 4 areas listed below. These questions will drive you work.
The 4 areas of support needed
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- How do I do {X}?
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- I would like to achieve {X}. Can you develop that?
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- Why is X not working?
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- Coda is slooow and/or crashes. Can you do something?
Expand here to see a detailed description of the 4 areas
- How do I do {X}?
These are questions about how to use the Coda solution.
Examples:
- How do I add a new vendor?
- I need to change status of the project from “Open” to “Closed”. I cannot find the status field. Can you help me?
- What happens if I click this button?
Your job:
- Sometimes the team just needs pointing in the right direction. Answer being “You can do that on this page or like this”.
- Sometimes the team wants to do something that’s not developed yet. If it’s a one-off, you would go to the database and just e.g. change the status. If it’s recurring, you would identify it as a new feature request and develop it.
- I would like to achieve {X}. Can you develop that?
These are all the ideas for new development. These can vary in size.
Examples:
- I would like to store approx. budget for each lead (small request: add a new column)
- I would like to easily see all the projects that each employee is staffed on by date (structural change: redesign data-model)
Your job:
- Implement request for changes. Our CEO will help prioritise/scope in case of bigger changes.
- Why is X not working?
These are questions/reports when something is not working as expected in Coda. These we consider bugs. There are 2 different types of bugs:
a) Bugs in the logic
The Doc Maker has set up the logic wrong or forgot to account for something in the logic.
Examples:
- When clicking button A, then update status to “Finished”. However, status gets updated to “Open”
- When a new lead comes in, send notification on Slack. However, the Slack message contains wrong information.
Your job:
- Identify where the logic is flawed and correct it. The team will now what is the expected behaviour.
b) Bugs in Coda
Unfortunately, Coda sometimes pushes new changes that causes a bug - or one of their subservices are down.
Examples:
- Personal “Select Control” storing a pdf-file. After Coda pushed a change, Coda didn’t recognise it as a file, but as a string causing our logic to fail
- Scanning for malware when uploading a pdf file never finishes (because Coda’s subservience Scanii was down)
Your job:
- Identify it as a bug in Coda (typically I discover this through the forum or status.coda.io). If the bug is not already identified, then submit a bug report to Coda.
- Coda is slooow and/or crashes. Can you do something?
As usage of our Coda solution grows, so does the Doc Size. Currently, our Docs are at a well-performing state. However, it is expected that performance issues can arise as the business grows.
Your job:
- Identify areas for improvements. Can be small changes (e.g. identify usage of heavy Now() formula) or require structural changes to the data model. Once identified, discuss with the CEO for prioritising optimisation of performance.
Practical details
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Location: Preferably Europe (we are based in Denmark, Northern Europe)
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Language: English (or Danish, but that’s really only a bonus)
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Communication: Preferably through Slack
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When? Starting ASAP
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Duration: For the long run (> 6 months). Idea is for you to continue being our Coda Doc Maker also when I’m back from maternity. So ideal for someone who would like to have a stable stream of income for a longer period.
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Time commitment: Can vary. Everything from 5 hours per month to 30 hours per month. This will be solely driven by the everyday work and questions coming from the team.
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Payment: Payment by the hour and potentially a fixed monthly fee for being available for ad hoc support
Interested?
Shoot me a message or reply with your website/details on this post.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with questions or alternative ideas for how to structure a collaboration that could be ideal for our need and your dream way of working.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks
Maja and the rest of the team
