I’m in Europe, and working with a handful of other employees as union reps for our workplace. I’m looking for software that can help us keep a record/history of workplace issues, including all the meeting minutes, developments, and resolutions.
I’ve tried to use Microsoft Teams and Lists, but it’s terrible - so many stupid little caveats, making many of it’s features ultimately frustrating, clunky or useless. And it’s slow.
Whereas Seatable is almost perfect for us. However there is a workflow issue I would like advice on.
Typically each issue we’re recording/tracking will have one main Word document where most of the developments and updates are recorded. And in the issue’s folder (OneDrive), there will be supporting files; usually Word, Excel and PDF.
We can use Seatable’s long text field instead of a main Word document, but the problem is how to handle the other files.
We could upload and attach the other files. But this means a lot of downloading and reuploading when working on them. And it’s not clear how versioning would work if we happened to work on the same document simultaneously.
The other way would be to manually link to a documents folder on OneDrive, and open the files in Office365.
Before we go ahead and instigate the linking method, is there any advanced method for this kind of workflow that I don’t know about, or any tips and advice?
It sounds like n8n could be a great solution to streamline your workflow and handle the file management issues you’re facing. It’s a workflow automation tool that can connect SeaTable with OneDrive and much more!
However, I should have pointed out that none of us are technical and we have no salary or budget for doing this. We’re just average workers looking to uphold the rights and conditions of the employees at the place we work.
So I’ve no idea how to ‘self-host’ n8n, and it sounds like you need to be able to code to set it up to do what you want it to do. We wouldn’t have the first clue about how to do any of that.
Doing it manually, I guess each table entry will have a unique number (Eg Ref0001), so we would create a folder on One Drive with that name, get the shareable link, and copy that URL into a cell in Seatable. Going the other way, I guess we’d just look up the folder name.
Very clumsy, but that’s all we’re capable of, I think!
I am a big fan of n8n, I think it’s too complicated for a simple application.
I see two options in addition to you using the long text editor for keeping notes:
Add a URL column and insert a direct link to OneDrive/Google Drive. This way, you can continue to work in the document type of your choice and versioning is taken care of. In a link cell, you can jump directly into the link resource by clicking on the icon on the far right in the cell
Paste a DOCX/XLSX document into a file column and use the office document editor integrated in SeaTable. Just click on the document and it opens in an editor similar to an MS365 editor.
Paste a DOCX/XLSX document into a file column and use the office document editor integrated in SeaTable. Just click on the document and it opens in an editor similar to an MS365 editor.
Thanks for your reply.
I didn’t know this existed. I think when I click on a Word document in the example templates, it just downloads.
EDIT:
So I tried it with my own uploaded files and the OnlyOffice app lets me preview the documents, which is great. However, to edit them may require a paid account, so I’ll probably have to use the linking method.
The linking method is good enough though, I think, because Seatable provides a robust unique first column that I can use to link the OneDrive folder the opposite way. Not every software of this type allows this.
