Way to generate periodic tasks

[Sridhar_Ramaswamy]

I am using Coda to manage my TODO list and loving it.

I have sets of things that I like to check in on periodically. Things like doing a balance workout once a week, updating my investments spreadsheet once a month or getting the gutter people to come clean our gutters early Fall before the rains. I do this manually by having these things in a google spreadsheet and periodically adding to my todo list by manual scanning. I would love to be able to automate this using Coda.

A sample doc with two tables is here.

Roughly, I want to be able to run a piece of code every Sunday. It will iterate through each row in the “Periodic Tasks” table and if the next instance of a particular task (in the future) is in the upcoming week, I want to insert a row into the TODO List table.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!!
–Sridhar

[Jean_Pierre_Traets]

Hi,

With credits to @Ander, the below post might be of your interest.

Template w/ tasks that start on day 1, 3, 10, 30 of project

@Jason_Diller I don’t think that I really understood your question, but on the off chance that I did, perhaps a date control would help you here? [start_date_template-1_2019-01-20_1220] [start_date_template-2_2019-01-20_1218] [start_date_template-3_2019-01-20_1221]

Kind regards,
Jean Pierre

[Krunal_Sheth]

@Sridhar_Ramaswamy

PTAL at this template https://coda.io/t/My-Reminders_t9AXEcoMPbW - this one sends a periodic reminder - you could take similar logic and instead of notifiying about the task, move the task to your regular TO-DO List.

[preeyanka]

Hi Sridhar,

Here is an example I put together for your specific use case - I focus on solving for the tasks recurring on an n-month periodicity.

The key idea here is to use the relativeDate function in the “Periodic tasks” table to identify if the next occurrence of a specific task is scheduled to occur in the upcoming week. If it is NOT scheduled for the upcoming week, then the “Add to To-Do List” and “Update Last Completed Date” buttons for the row will be false.

An automation is then set up to run every Sunday at 9 am and push the “Push Both Buttons” button column.

Hope this solution helps!

[Sridhar_Ramaswamy]

Whoa! This is brilliant!! Thank you, Preeyanka.

One small detail: it would be good to update last completed date after the task has been entered into the regular todo list. Since I can’t add multiple actions to a button press, should I duplicate the column and associate the buttons in that column with updating last completed date?

–Sridhar

[preeyanka]

Thanks for the catch - I got so excited about the first part that I forgot the second step! I’ve corrected the example and will update the instructions as well.

To your question - yes I’ve done exactly that. I created a second button column to update the “Last completed” column and a 3rd button column that pushes both buttons. Then the automation only needs to push the 3rd button column.

We’d like to get to native multi-step buttons in the future but in the mean time, this is the workaround we use.

– Preeyanka

[Sridhar_Ramaswamy]

Awesome! I just implemented the two buttons and had automation push both of them.

This is such a cool solution to a long standing issue I have struggled with. Thanks again, Preeyanka.

Go Coda!
–Sridhar

[Mayank_Agarwal]

@preeyanka Hey!

I just went through your automate your to-do list guide and was stuck somewhere.
Can we please discuss it further?

[Mayank_Agarwal]

@Sridhar_Ramaswamy could you please share the template of your Doc please.
I was looking for the exact same solution and seeing that you’ve cracked it, could I use your Doc template as well?

Thanks!