The structure of a formula

Where can I see all of Coda's formulas?
Basic Math
Basic Boolean Logic
First and Last
Filter and thisRow
Best practices and tips
Troubleshooting your formulas

Coda's formula language has a lot to offer, with hundreds of formulas you can use as you build your doc. But when you're just getting started, or going about your daily tasks, you don't need the whole suite. Instead, you can develop a solid foundation with a few key formulas and principles that will enable you able to accomplish most use cases and set you up for more advanced setups in the future.

You can find all of Coda's formulas right here: https://coda.io/formulas

Before we get into the most commonly used formula inputs, there are a few important things to know about how to write formulas in Coda. 

When you write a Coda formula, you're not just limited to cells or rows. You can use any of the following objects as "ingredients":

All of these ingredients are essentially lists of information. More on this later in the article!

Everything in Coda has a name, and rather than using a coordinate (like A2:A33), you'll just use its name in the Formula:

With complex formulas in Excel, you’re required to wrap methods around “inner formulas” ー leaving you with this long block of )))))’s at the end of your formulas which can be really hard to understand. If you like that approach, Coda will support you, but you can also use chaining to help with readability.  

Chaining separates steps in your formula by using a dot operator which is a fancy word for a "." - at its most basic level, chaining looks like this:

When you're working with formulas, there are a few operators to be aware of:

As the function describes, Count() will count the number of items/objects in the object being referenced. For example, if you write Table.Count(), Count() will return the number of rows in the table. There's also it's useful cousin CountIf() in case you want to stipulate some criteria for the count! For example, if you only wanted to count the rows where the status was "Complete".

Great for summing numerical values in Coda such as currencies, durations and ordinary numbers!

CountUnique helps you count the number of non-duplicative items in your table.

Filter is probably the most useful formula for day-to-day work. It lets you determine which part of the table you are interested in. For example, I might want to know how many tasks in the All Tasks table are Not Started:

In Excel, the smallest unit is a cell. Since Coda is a database at heart, the smallest unit is a row. What this buys you is the ability to take all of the contextual details of an item with you, and you can drag and drop rows and columns around as you see fit.  

For example, dragging and dropping tasks as their status changes:

This also means that you can use thisRow to focus your formulas. For example, I may want to see all of the Ingredients associated with a recipe:

In the formula above I am mapping ingredients from one table to recipes in another:

The full setup:

Boolean Logic is a fancy term for determining whether or not the answer to your question is true or false. Your question can be simple like "is the status of this task equal to "Done?" (true), or more complex "is the status of my task equal to "Done" and assigned to me or my colleague? (false).  You'll normally use AND or OR logic when filtering a table/view or when using the FILTER() formula.

This function allows you to see the results for items that meet multiple requirements. For example, I might want to know  any task that is Not Started AND assigned to me so I know what I need to focus on.

This function lets you decide to cast a wider net if you're interested in seeing the results of a few different queries. For example, as a project manager, I want to know tasks assigned to me OR tasks that aren't started yet so I can manage the team. 

Just like in math problems, you'll use parentheses to separate multiple AND and OR functions so that all of your calculations happen in the right order.  Coda will calculate anything inside of a parentheses first.

(2*2)/(4+4) = .5

In the example above, we will multiply 2 times 2 and 4 plus 4 before doing the division.

In the same way, use parentheses to specify how multiple AND or OR functions should be grouped. By default, the formula applies the logic from left to right in the order that it appears. If you want to specify a specific order, just use parentheses.

This concept is best learned by playing with a real-life example. The first formula filters a Tasks table to show all tasks that are both assigned to Adam AND are either not started or in progress:

However, if you add in parentheses around the first two phrases (shown in red below), it will instead show all tasks that are either [both assigned to Adam and not started], OR in-progress tasks:

Did you follow that? It's a subtle change, but can make a big change in your filter. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to us - we're happy to help 😄 .

Oh, and If you're ever missing a parenthesis, Coda will let you know:

When you're working with a set of data, many times you're looking to pull out a specific subset of it -  like the first item of a list, or the first task assigned to myself. When you're dealing with data a list doesn't necessarily need to be a literal list of text, it could be in a table, or even the details of a row.

Last also allows me to pull out a subset of information. Maybe I want to know that last task that was added:

Since you'll use the actual names of items in your formulas, it will be a lot easier if everything has a unique name. Coda helps you out by color coding items that come from the same table, but this will eliminate any confusion

Instead of:

both the table and the column are titled "Project" 🙅

Use this:

Running into unexpected issues with your formula? Check out this article or navigate to our Gallery for tons of tips on handling formulas.