Copy View settings

User Talk Views
1

Hello, is it possible to copy the settings from one view to another? I have several views with filtered data from the same table, but when I make a change in one view, I have to manually apply the same change to the others. I would also like to copy or edit the width of a column.

Thanks!

2

You can duplicate views. When duplicating a view, the new view inherits all filter/sort/group settings from the duplicate view.

Once a view has been created, it stands on its own.

The rationale behind views is that they provide different viewpoints at the data. Different viewpoints implies different view settings (i.e. filters).

3

Yes, but sometimes different views are based on the same principle, with only a couple of different filters, groups, or sorts. If I make some edits—like showing or hiding several columns—in the “main view”, I have to apply those edits manually to all the other views, and in my case, there are several.

4

For two of our power users, I had the same requirement: They have literally >50 views which are identical, only differing in one aspect (for different user groups / departments, the filter parameter contains a different string, which filters the records that only one department should see).

Duplicating didn’t cut it: When they needed to change something (e.g. add a column) later, they had to add it to each of the 50+ views manually. Which was not only tedious, but very error-prone.

I ended up with a workflow using n8n:

  • n8n reads the filter settings from one “master view” that I defined, and writes them into columns within a special seatable table.
    • Filter, Sort, Grouping etc. in separate columns, and as Json strings. The latter is not user friendly, but those are power users.
  • The base Designers can then copy and change that line in the Seatable table.
    • A webhook in n8n reacts to those changes.
    • If a view corresponding to the line (by name) does not exist, it is created via th API.
    • The view (either existing or newly created) then gets the master view’s settings.
  • In real life, it’s even more complicated: The master view’s settings (Json strings) can be manipulated by a formula, e.g. a placeholder can be replaced with individual values for each line.

Maybe that gives you an idea.