How to move beyond the basics in Coda
Part two of our series on how Coda connects teams by utilizing Packs, automations, and Coda AI into one unified workspace.
Rocky Moon
Product Education Specialist at Coda
How to move beyond the basics in Coda
By Rocky Moon
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· 9 min read
1. Attack your tasks with Packs.
When we say Coda brings your tools and teammates together, we really do mean all of your tools. Yes, we’ve built a workspace that modernizes docs, tables, and collaboration in general. But, obviously, most enterprise teams will need another tool somewhere in their workflow. That’s why we spent so much time building secure integrations called Packs.- Packs expand your docs, ensuring they’re hubs for all of your work, no matter which platforms you need to do it.
- We have more than 600 Packs, each connecting Coda to a different platform, app, or capability, and more come out all the time. With a Pack, you can add Word to a Coda doc, see and edit Jira problems, store Figma mockups next to briefs, and send Slack or email updates with the push of a button.
- Some Packs are full integrations, where edits made in Coda sync to other platforms and tools. Some are embeds that pull in data stored elsewhere that you can interact with in Coda.
- By bringing your data and tools into one space, Packs streamline your tool stack and to-do list, saving hours of tab switching and resource hunting. What’s more, all of your team members can still use their favorite tools and systems and seamlessly share their work in Coda.
- If your favorite tool or platform isn’t an option (yet) in our Gallery, don’t fret. In addition to releasing new Packs, we also open the Packs Gallery up to any maker who wants to add their own.
Did you know?
With a bit of time and a little Javascript, anyone can make their own Pack. Whether you want to build for your team or for over a million Coda makers, the Pack Studio lets you manage the entire process—building, testing, publishing, and selling—end-to-end in a single place.
2. Choose automation, not repetition.
At some point, you can pack for your next trip without thinking too hard about it. You’ve made your choices of what gear you need when and tested those choices through earlier trips, so it’s just rote repetition to reach for the familiar gear. How regularly can you say the same thing about your job? If you send the same emails, invite the same people to the same weekly meetings, Slack the same coworkers day after day, and water the same plants, you can offload that to Coda’s automations. (Ok, Coda will not automatically water your plants, but it will remind you to do so.)
- To set up your first automation, click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of any doc to go to your settings.
- Hit automations in the settings menu, and you’ll see any rules currently set up on the doc, the option to add a rule, a template drop-down, and a link to more information at the very bottom.
- To start a new automation, click on “add rule.”
- From there, you’ll have the option to name and describe your rule, and then you’ll choose from four drop-down options.
- Your trigger action options are as follows: when a row is changed, a form submitted, a webhook invoked, or the clock hits a specific day and time. In this same space, you can set a time limit for your rule if you need, ending the automation in a week, month, or on a specific date.
- Then, you select your then. There are 13 built-in options for resulting actions and many, many more resulting actions when you link Coda with Packs. Hot tip: Make a button to take the action you want to take (send an email, notify someone, etc). Then, make the automation just press the button. It’s MUCH easier to test and troubleshoot.
- At 8:00 A.M. every Monday morning, an automatic email can remind your team to update statuses before your weekly meeting.
- Any time someone marks a task on a table “done,” the team lead gets an update in Slack that it’s ready for review.
- Whenever someone makes a request through one of your forms, you get an automatic notification.
Did you know?
Not sure you want to trial and error your way through a new automation? We built automation templates to let you add rules on easy mode. Start a new automation and then select a pre-made rule to automate sending notifications, emails, or daily summaries.
3. Let Coda AI become your new work best friend.
Automations are time savers, but using Coda AI is an extra step up the ladder. Coda AI’s chatbot can do everything you’ve come to expect from the latest generation of AI. It’s a productivity buddy that will help you refine ideas, generate text, and ask and answer questions. I’m confident Coda AI will quickly become your favorite brainstorming partner and editor, suggesting changes and leaving comments.
- Since this AI is embedded in your workspace, it’s much better at building with you. Sure, it can summarize emails, but it can also generate text and tables wholesale from data saved in your docs or even pulled in from other platforms thanks to Packs.
- With Coda AI, you can organize, summarize, and show off your work in no time at all. Let AI make docs full of meeting notes, team voting trackers, and interactive briefs—taking even more mindless admin off your hands.
- And Coda AI doesn’t leave your tables alone once they’re created. It can analyze your columns, generating insights from your work and turning tedious tasks into auto-generated content at scale. It can build to-do lists based on meeting notes and turn tables back into write-ups.
- Best of all, this AI is completely secure. You’re not copying and pasting proprietary data into external platforms where you don’t know what happens to it. You’re using an internal tool that keeps your data where it belongs.
Did you know?
Coda AI isn’t just limited to the data stored in your docs. It can work with Packs to analyze work stored in all of your connected accounts. When information lives everywhere, your team can’t get anywhere. Unlock your data's potential with AI-powered knowledge assistance that connects to 600+ integrations.