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People & Relations

These field types bring your board to life by connecting data to people and to other tables. Use them to assign work, build relational data models, and pull or aggregate information across tables without duplicating data.

Users​

The Users field lets you assign one or more workspace members to a row. Assigned users appear as avatar chips in the cell, making it immediately clear who is responsible for each item.

  • Value type: Select (multiple user IDs)
  • Default behavior: Click the cell to open a member picker and select one or more users.
  • Typical uses: Task assignees, reviewers, project owners, responsible parties.

Key Behaviors​

  • Multiple assignment --- A single Users field can hold multiple people, so you can assign an entire team to one row.
  • Avatar display --- Each assigned user shows their profile avatar. Hover to see the full name.
  • Filtering --- Filter the board to show only rows assigned to a specific person or to yourself.
  • Notifications --- When the column has notifications enabled, assigned users receive alerts when the row is updated.

Linking​

The Linking field creates a relationship between rows in two different tables. When you add a Linking column, you select a target table, and each row can then reference one or more rows from that target.

  • Value type: Select (row references)
  • Default behavior: Click the cell to search and select rows from the linked table.
  • Typical uses: Associating tasks with projects, linking contacts to companies, connecting orders to products.

How Linking Works​

  1. Create a Linking column and choose the target table.
  2. When you link rows, Copera automatically creates a mirror Linking column in the target table, establishing a two-way relationship.
  3. Each cell displays the linked row names as chips. Click a chip to navigate to the linked row.

Linked Row Forms​

You can configure a Link Form on a Linking column. This provides a quick-entry form that lets users create a new row in the linked table directly from the current board, pre-filled with the appropriate link.

Lookup​

The Lookup field pulls data from a linked table and displays it in the current table. It works in tandem with a Linking column --- once rows are linked, Lookup lets you see specific column values from those linked rows without navigating to the other table.

  • Value type: Read-only (derived from linked rows)
  • Default behavior: Automatically displays data from the selected column in the linked table.
  • Typical uses: Showing a contact's email from a linked Contacts table, displaying a project's status from a linked Projects table, surfacing a product's price from a catalog.

Setting Up a Lookup​

  1. Ensure you have a Linking column that connects to another table.
  2. Add a Lookup column and select:
    • The Linking column to use as the relationship source.
    • The column in the linked table whose values you want to display.
  3. Copera automatically populates the Lookup cells with the corresponding values.

If a row has multiple linked rows, the Lookup field shows the count of linked values, and you can expand to see all of them.

Rollup​

The Rollup field aggregates data from linked rows using a mathematical function. While Lookup shows individual values from linked rows, Rollup computes a single summary value --- such as a total, an average, or a count.

  • Value type: Read-only (computed aggregation)
  • Default behavior: Displays the result of an aggregation function applied to a column in the linked table.
  • Typical uses: Total revenue from linked orders, average score from linked reviews, count of tasks linked to a project, maximum priority among linked items.

Available Aggregation Functions​

FunctionDescription
SumAdds all values from the linked column
AverageCalculates the arithmetic mean
MedianFinds the middle value
MinReturns the smallest value
MaxReturns the largest value
CountCounts the number of linked rows

Setting Up a Rollup​

  1. Ensure you have a Linking column connected to another table.
  2. Add a Rollup column and configure:
    • The Linking column to use.
    • The column in the linked table to aggregate.
    • The aggregation function (Sum, Average, Median, Min, Max, or Count).
  3. The Rollup column updates automatically whenever linked data changes.

Example​

Imagine a Projects table linked to a Tasks table. Each project has multiple tasks, and each task has a numeric "Hours" column. A Rollup column on the Projects table configured with Sum on the "Hours" column would display the total hours for all tasks linked to each project.

Next Steps​