People & Relations

These field types bring your board to life by connecting data to people and to other rows --- whether those rows live in another table or in the same one. 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.

Self-link

The Self-link field connects rows to other rows in the same table, rather than to rows in a different table. It uses the same Link field as cross-table Linking --- the difference is simply that you point it at the table you are already in. This is the natural way to build parent-child structures, group related items, or model dependencies without spreading your data across multiple tables.

• Value type: Select (row references within the same table)
• Default behavior: Click the cell to search and select other rows from the current table.
• Typical uses: Parent and sub-items, task hierarchies, "related to" connections, blocking or follow-up relationships, grouping records under a lead item.

How Self-link Differs from Linking

Aspect	Linking	Self-link
Connects to	Rows in a different table	Other rows in the same table
Best for	Relationships between two kinds of records (tasks ↔ projects)	Relationships within one kind of record (task ↔ sub-task)
Setup	Pick another table as the target	Pick the current table as the target

Creating a Self-link Column

1. Add a new column and choose Link to table as the field type.
2. When prompted to pick a table to link to, select the table you are currently in.
3. Name the column (for example, "Parent task", "Blocked by", or "Related items") and save.

Each cell then shows the connected rows as chips, just like a regular Linking cell. Click a chip to jump to that row.

tip

Self-link is perfect for building a simple hierarchy inside one table --- add a "Parent" Self-link column so every row can point to its parent item, then use it to roll work up or filter to a single branch.

note

A Self-link does not create a separate mirror column the way cross-table Linking does. Because both ends of the relationship live in the same table, automatic two-way back-references are not added for self-links --- you connect rows directly from the cell.

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

Function	Description
Sum	Adds all values from the linked column
Average	Calculates the arithmetic mean
Median	Finds the middle value
Min	Returns the smallest value
Max	Returns the largest value
Count	Counts 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

• Contact Fields --- Store email, phone, website, and location information.
• Advanced Fields --- Money, file attachments, link buttons, and more.
• Field Types Overview --- Return to the full list of all 32 field types.