How to Coda personalized pages?
and to email a page filled-out with variables
Most of us are used to work with variables in tables and even on pages applying filters to show the proper variable like due date, product name etc. You get this info on your page by referencing to a row in a table based on an active checkbox, the last row or something else. The result is then something like below on a page:
One by One
As long you have columns with single items, like a project name, a due date, the referencing follows a standard pattern. On the email page you reference to the relevant column and second to pick the relevant row you rely on Last() ) — useful when a new row is added in a table or on an active checkbox.
The active checkbox
Once non Coda Experts use a Coda doc, it should be as simple for them as possible. In my use case they can invite others via email and the team leader selects the project for which he wants to reach out.
On the email page we reference to the Project Name in a Table and filter on an active checkbox. This approach is well known to most of us.
To make sure we have an active checkbox we start with two rules, see below. First we modify all the check boxes (items in a list) into empty via False() and next we put the checkbox on active ,thus as True() for the row we are working on. The snippet below shows how this goes.
Based on this logic we can pick up all the variables from the table we reference as long as there is one item in the column we reference to. But what if you need to personalize an email and you use the logic as you find here and see below. You have multiple users in the column Internal Team.
The complexity is that a single columns contains per row multiple items. If we apply the proposed filter logic as above each page we email contains all the names of the internal team, that is not what we have in mind. We want per email the name of the recipient and not the others.
Multiple Items in one cell
I did not know how to solve this puzzle and contacted Joostmineur. He showed me the way to go and explained that we need a controller to make it work. Many thanks Joostmineur.
In this controller we reference to each single item via the often mentioned virtual index logic based on Sequence() and FormulaMap()This controller is put on the email page and is filled with item 1, item 2 and so, the same way as we email using the CurrentValue to reference the Nth() item.
I hope you enjoy the beauty of this solution as much as I did. The result is that each recipient sees her / his own name in the email and that was the idea!
Once you see this solution, you understand also that (if you want) you can replace the checkbox logic shown above with a controller logic.
I hope you enjoyed this article. If you have questions feel free to reach out. Though this article is for free, my work (including advice) won’t be, but there is always room for a chat to see what can be done. Besides you find my (for free) contributions to the Coda Community and on Twitter
My name is Christiaan Huizer and I am the owner of Huizer Automation. A company specialized in serving SME in harvesting data and keeping it aligned. I am a Coda Expert and rely mainly on Coda, Mailjet, Zapier & Paperform to get the job done.
