Hi @Brendan_Woithe,
Thank you for the detailed post! It points out something that is a common mixup, for us in our own docs here as well!
I started using Coda before we had the color “capsules” in the formula builder to help know what tables, columns, and rows you were referencing, so this is something that has been improving over time. Recently, @Jason_Tamulonis did some work to improve how these formulas operate. You might notice the formula building auto-recommending values better than it did before where it will auto-complete with a “capsule” row reference when it’s able to instead of text in quotes.
You can read more on the update here…
If you have other questions, or keep running into this situation, let us know!
Ben