Tables on a client portal page

Who can use it. Anyone who can edit portal templates (Portal → Templates), plus anyone who can open a deal's Portal tab to fill one in.

What it's for

A table is the right shape for anything you'd otherwise write out as a list of items with a status against each: notes and changes, selections, variations, a schedule of finishes. Your client sees it laid out properly in their portal, and you decide whether they can only read it or fill parts of it in.

Add a table

1. On the portal template, click + and choose Table.
2. The table appears on the page with the cursor already in its title: type the name and carry on. There is no panel to fill in first.
3. Open the table's ⋯ menu (beside the title) to pick a starting layout: Notes & Changes, Selections or Variations, or leave it blank and add your own columns.
4. Type over the column headings and row labels straight on the canvas.

The table's title and description sit above it on the page and are edited there, like everything else about the table. The starting layouts are just a head start: change any heading, add columns, delete the ones you don't want. The picker disappears once the table has columns, so it can't wipe out work you've already done.

You can also add a table to one deal only, without touching the shared template: open that deal's Portal tab, click + on the page and choose Table. It shows up on that deal's portal and nowhere else, and like on the template, it lands with the cursor already in its title. A table added this way is the deal's own, so its title, description, starting layouts and client lock are all on its ⋯ menu, same as on the template. A table that came *from* the template shows its title and description on the deal page but doesn't let you change them there: those belong to the template, so changing them changes every deal.

What each column holds

Every column has a type, which decides what a cell in it looks like:

| Type | What a cell becomes | | --- | --- | | Text | A plain line of text | | Checkbox | A tick box | | Link | A web address, or a link to another page of the portal | | Date | A date picker | | Number | A number, tick Currency to show it as money | | Status | A coloured pill picked from a list you write (To do / In progress / Done…) | | Image | A picture you upload |

Click the ▾ in a column heading to open that column's menu and pick its type. The cells change shape immediately, in place: no panel, no save step.

Two more things live in that menu when they apply: Show as currency for a number column, and the list of pill labels for a status column.

Change every column at once

Picked the wrong type for the whole table? Open any column's ▾, choose the type you want, then click Set every column to …. Every column changes in one go: the handy one for "make these all dates" or "make these all tick boxes".

Nothing you've already typed is thrown away by a type change. A date column showing an old bit of text simply looks empty until someone fills it in; switch the type back and the text is still there.

Pictures are yours to add: a client can never upload into a table cell. Click Choose image… in the cell and the upload card opens for that table; everything else about a table is done on the page itself.

Adding, moving and removing rows and columns

Everything is on the table itself:

• A column's ▾ menu: insert a column to its left or right, duplicate it (settings and contents), move it left or right, or remove it.
• A row's ⋮ menu: insert a row above or below, duplicate it, move it up or down, or remove it.
• The table's ⋯ menu: the table's own settings, including who can edit it, the starting layouts while it is still empty, and duplicating or deleting the whole table.
• + at the end of the headings adds a column on the end; + Add row at the foot of the table adds a row at the bottom.

Whatever is already in the cells moves with a row or column: nothing needs retyping and nothing is lost. Removing a column or row takes its own contents with it, and nothing else.

Put it inside a drop-down

Add a Drop-down block first and give it a title: that title is what the client sees and clicks. Then add the table inside it. The table stays hidden until the client taps the title. On a phone it scrolls sideways rather than cutting columns off the edge.

This is the closest thing to a Notion toggle with a table inside, and it's how to keep a long page readable: one line per topic, the detail folded away until someone wants it.

Who can edit it

New tables are view only for clients: they can read the table but not change it.

To let clients fill something in:

1. Open the table's ⋯ menu in the template and switch on Clients can edit this table.
2. Open each column's ▾ menu and tick Customer can fill this in on just the columns they should touch.

Everything else stays yours. While the table is view-only, that per-column tick is greyed out, because the table-level setting overrides it: the menu says so right under the tick, and offers Let clients edit this table so you can lift the lock from where you're already standing (it's the same switch as the ⋯ menu's). On a deal, a table that came from the template points you back to the template instead, because that's where its lock lives.

Tables built before this change are still client-editable if their columns were set that way. Open the table's ⋯ menu in the template and switch Clients can edit this table off to lock it. Nothing a client has already typed is lost when you do: locking stops new edits, it doesn't clear the table.

Filling it in

You can fill a table in on the template, on a deal, or both; they do different jobs:

• On the template. Whatever you type here is what every deal *starts* with. Use it for the parts that are the same every job: your standard line items, the usual selections, the list of documents you always ask for.
• On the deal. Open the deal, go to its Portal tab and edit the table there, on the page. As soon as anything on that deal's table changes, the deal keeps its own copy and later edits to the template no longer reach it. That is the point: one client's answers should never follow them onto the next job.

Column and row headings belong to the template, so every deal using it gets the same ones. Rows and columns are added, renamed, reordered and deleted straight on the table, on either editor: the deal's table card is only reached from an image cell now, for uploading pictures and for saving or clearing that deal's copy.