Need help on formatting a card

[Chris_DeSisto]

I am trying to add a form into a card. Not sure if a form is the best way to do this. What I am trying to do is have a card that has questions that I may ask a client that I am filling in as we are talking. I want it to be on each new card that I open. I just need to fill in the response to the question.

[Scott_Collier-Weir]

Hey there!

Welcome to the community. Can you give a bit more context to your question? It’s hard to fully make out what you are asking.

[Pch]

Hi @Chris_DeSisto !

As @Scott_Collier-Weir said earlier, without more context it’s a bit hard to answer your question but…
Why not simply use a detail layout ?

Such as this one (it’s just a quick bare bone sample which can be customised/optimised … It will probably look a little bit better when opened in its own tab, as the embed here looks a bit squeezed ) :

I used a filtered connected view of the table [Questions & Answers per client] (which you’ll find below the view) as an entry point for the answers .
The view is filtered by clients and by the “status” of the question (i.e.: marked as answered or not)

That’s just an idea though

[Chris_DeSisto]

@Scott_Collier-Weir @Pch

Hey thanks for responding!

I just started this week learning coda. I’ve watched a good amount of tutorials but its a lot to learn at first.

As far as what i am talking about, I’ll try to clarify more.

I am in real estate, I am using a a board view to put new properties into a phase, like intake in step 1, then maybe qualify step 2, then negotiate in step 3 etc. I move the property across the board as it gets to the next phase, working on the column details.

So what I want to try to do is have all the info about the person as far as contact info, the property and details about the property in one card. I have about 10 questions about the property i ask as starter info.

I want it to be a template so each new card is set up ready to add in all the info. Im open to ideas. I’ll take a look at what @Pch suggested. I like coda and the ability to customize.

[Pch]

Hi @Chris_DeSisto !

I know it’s been a few days but I’ve played around a little with this and came up with something you could potentially explore .

So, from the context you gave us what I understood is that :

• A single property needs to be linked to:
  • 1 client
  • 1 phase
  • multiple questions
    • and each question needs an answer

So, following this, I first began to build :

• 1 table to store the properties and some info (address, price, etc…) :
  → the table Properties in the doc
• 1 table to store the clients and their contact info (phone number, email)
  → the table Clients in the doc
• 1 table to store the different phases a property can go through in the process:
  → the table [Property Phases] in the doc
• 1 table to store all the questions you will ask to a client:
  → the table [Question List] in the doc

Once done, I mixed and matched almost everything by adding to the Properties table:

• a lookup field (single select and manual entry) from the table Clients to link each property in the table to a specific client
• a lookup field (single select and manual entry) from the table [Property Phases] to link each property in the table to a specific phase.
  (By default, a brand new property added in the table will have its phase attributed to [Phase 0])

Then, 1 client was linked to 1 property and 1 property was also linked to 1 phase (both manually ).

For display purposes, I got back the contact info of each client (from the Clients table) in the Properties table (as they are used later on, in the connected card view of this table )

Now, each property in the Properties table needed to be linked to a series of questions and each question needed a specific answer …

Well, for this, I created a table called [Q&A per property & client] where each row stores a question from the table [Question List] for each property. (Therefore, each question can have its own answer.)

So, the structure here is :

Q&A per property & client
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 1 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 2 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 3 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 4 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 5 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 6 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 7 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 8 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 9 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 1 -> Question 10 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 1 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 2 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 3 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 4 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 5 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 6 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 7 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 8 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 9 -> 1 answer
 ├─ 1 row -> Property 2 -> Question 10 -> 1 answer
 ├─ ...
 └─ etc...

Then, to be able to display the series of questions anywhere in the connected view of the Properties table (more info about that later on ), I got those questions back (within a lookup field called [Q&A per property & client] ) in the table Properties.

To link each property to the questions (and avoid having to do it manually, like I did at first ), I’ve added 2 fields in the table Properties :

1. A lookup field from the table [Question List] called [Question List - To be added] which compares the list of questions in the lookup field [Q&A per property & client] to the questions in the table [Question List] and returns a list of questions that were not added yet to the table [Q&A per property & client] for the property sitting in the row.

2. A button which when pushed, will add as many rows as needed to the table [Q&A per property & client] and link the property sitting in the row to each question listed in the field [Question List - To be added]

This means that if, by mistake, you delete an unanswered question from the table [Q&A per property & client] for the property x, you can click on that button and only the that question will be re-added
(This is can be perfected as if you actually delete an answered question from the table [Q&A per property & client], yes, you would be able to re-add the question but the answer would be lost.
It should be retrievable in the version history of the doc though …
I didn’t have the time to look more into this than what I did, sorry )

There’s also a canvas button which does something similar to the button in the table Properties but instead of just adding x questions for a specific property in the table to the table [Q&A per property & client], it will add all the “missing questions” for all the properties in the table Properties to the table [Q&A per property & client]

And for display purposes once again, I also got back the contact info of each client already linked to a property in the Properties table in the table [Q&A per property & client] (as they are also used later on, in the connected card view of this table )

That’s for the structure/linking …

Now, the display .

I must say that cards are not really meant to directly manipulate datas but much more to display some important info… not everything, just some.

Generally speaking, if you need to manipulate the datas behind the card, you’ll most likely need to expand a card and do what needs to be done in that expanded view of a row/card.

So, I tried to find some compromise here .

What you’ll first see in the sample doc below is a connected view of the table Properties (so what happens in the table Properties also happens in View of Properties and vice-versa) for which I chose a Card display and grouped that view by the phases.
Meaning that you’ll still be able to move a property from a phase to another one and having the phase updated accordingly.

I couldn’t put the whole Q & A there so instead, to give some visual and textual info about the progress of the Q & A with a client regarding a specific property, there’s a progress bar on the cards and just below as a text value, the amount of answered questions vs. the total of questions.
(Note that it’s not really pretty but again I just couldn’t find more time to push this further )

Now, when you’ll click on the only property sitting in [Phase 2] the row/card will be expanded and you’ll see something like this :

This expanded row/card uses a specifically crafted details layout simply called Properties which you can edit to your needs/liking

Now, for the questions/answers, within the layout, I chose to display the lookup field [Q&A per property & client] in this view as a subtable .

This gives you a direct access to the list of questions for the current property but also give you a way to add an answer for a question.

To do this, you can use the button [Open Row] or use any other way highlighted in the screenshot below

The row from the subtable (which is in fact a specific row from the table [Q&A per property & client]) will also be expanded in a modal for which another custom details layout has been created and applied (the details layout here is named Q&A and can also be edited).

You’ll find at the bottom of the modal 3 buttons :

• The gray one will take you back to the expanded card/row of the connected View of Properties
• The 2 purple ones should help you to navigate between the questions for the current property

In summary, while in an interview with a client all you would need to do is to expand the appropriate card in [View of Properties], expand the row of the first question in the subtable, write the answer and then use the button to navigate to the next question.
Once all the questions have been answered, you can click on the Back button and you’ll be taken right where you started (i.e.: in the expanded card of the property you chose) .

Now, if a property doesn’t have questions linked to it yet, you can use the green button you’ll find in the expanded card/row in [View of Properties]

In the sample below, not all properties have questions linked to them, so you could test and see how this all might work .

I’m sorry for the length but well, I had a lot to say about this !
I’ve tried my best to comment/annotate the sample but I probably forgot things here and there.

Again, this is just an idea

[Christiaan_Huizer]

@Chris_DeSisto
would you be so kind to share your feedback with @Pch
is this what you had in mind, does it help you to improve your set up?
merci, Christiaan