Override Display Column Setting

1

Wondering if it would be possible to override a table’s defined display column within subsequent views? :thinking:

Two simple usecases/examples:

  1. lookup columns
    Say you have a people table which contains a person’s full name and a person’s initials (among other details). You have a doc with many other tables/views which frequently lookup people. 95% of the time, it makes sense for the display column to be the person’s full name, but sometimes it would be nice to display their initials in a lookup column instead of their full name. Especially when you’re trying to squeeze as many columns as possible into a crowded table!

  2. gantt charts
    Currently the display column shows up as the block title in the gantt chart. Again, it would be great if you could specify a different column to display instead of the display column within the individual chart settings.

I can prepare an example doc if that makes things easier to understand. Also, maybe I’m missing something so suggestions are welcome!

Thank you! <3

edit: moved this to #askthecommunity

2

Dear @dara,

When you lookup another table you get the possibility to access any column you want to see and make this column the display column in your table.

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3

thank you @Jean_Pierre_Traets! I’m sorry my original request may not have been specific enough, so here is an example doc.

Basically what I want to achieve is to have the “Order” table look like this:

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but simultaneously have the “Service Request” table to look like this:

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i.e I still want the ability to change the assigned customer in the Service Request table, but to only have their initials show up. Does that make sense?

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4

Dear @dara

Would you mind to update your sharing settings as below:

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So that anyone with a link gets access!

Thank you

5

ah sorry! should be good now! let me know if it works for you?

6

Dear @dara

So I added the “initials” column that is a reference too the lookup column “Persons”
And then the “persons” column has been hidden.

See screenshot below:

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Awesome! but then it is not possible for me to change the “Person” assigned to that “Service Request” from that table, which is my desired functionality :cry:

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No worries, we could add a button to open the row to be able to update.
I will not be able to work on that immediately, but tomorrow around this time it could be fixed.

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Hi @Jean_Pierre_Traets thank you! No worries at all, thank you for helping me out. There is no rush.

I’ve implemented what I think you mean. To do this, I replaced the initials column with a button column, which then opens the Person detail form to update the person. This works ok, but would ideally be able to update the person assigned in-line in the table view. Do you know if this is possible?

Also, I forgot to mention that multiple people could be assigned to one Service Request. You’ll see what I mean in the doc.

Thank you for the help and no rush in responding!

10

Hey @dara,

Unfortunately it’s not possible to have different Display Columns for different uses.

If you totally wish to have this UX where the persons selects initials and not a full name in a dropdown, the way to work around this would be to introduce a Select column that’d be populated with initials, then look up a corresponding person row that matches those initials. With Gantt charts, you’d have to make a separate table that you’ll base your chart on. Basically you can always introduce a separate table, but that could be a hassle to keep the list of rows there in sync with the list of rows in your actual source-of-truth table.

11

Dear @dara,

It will not be possible to update without expanding this row. :frowning_face:
I added a button to expand, in case you work on mobile, it should make it more user friendly, but not necessary. More a personal choice!

I saw that you have the multiple person selection working :+1:

Success with your project

12

thank you both @Jean_Pierre_Traets and @Paul_Danyliuk appreciate the help and advice! :raised_hands: