What's the right/easiest way to get a canvas column in a table to be a template?

[tmchow]

A common use case for canvas column for us is to want to have a table in a coda doc for say a new project, campaign, etc. We want the canvas column to reprsent the plan/spec/doc for that project.

E.g.

Given this, I want the “Brief” canvas column to be a template when a new row is added.

I’ve done this with another doc by creating a relative complex templating system like the following. So here’s a table where I did meeting mtgs and want to capture stuff like topics, notes and action items:

To get a template for say the “Action Items” column, I first created a “templates” table with a canvas column with a specific format:

In that canvas column row for “Action items” here’s a simplistic template:

Then on another table, for the column I do this:

so when a new row is created, it bases it off that template defined in the “Templates” table.

This is cumbersome and annoying to have to do this. Am I missing something or is there a better/easier way to have Canvas columns have templates?

[tmchow]

Anyone have any feedback or solutions?

[Lena_Webster]

Hey tmchow, thanks so much for posting this question here! It sounds like you’re mostly on the right track here. According to some of our engineers, the easiest way to set this up is:

1. Create a new page in the doc that will serve as a template (note that you can even hide this page to prevent confusion)

2. Go to your canvas column, open the options, and in the “Value for new rows” field, search for the template page you created. Note that this experience is now richer and smoother than when you first created this post, so you’ll now have a nice drop-down and search bar to help you choose the template page.

Now that template page will show in the canvas column for each new row you create. Let me know if you have more questions on this!

[tmchow]

Excellent thank you! I swear templates weren’t available before during the earlier beta, but apologies if I missed that. This is awesome.

[Lena_Webster]

No I think you might be right! Likely an addition as the result of maker feedback