I’m trying to add new text to a column without deleting its existing content using the “Set column values” action in Glide Tables (not using Google Sheets).
Here’s my situation:
I have a column (let’s say Notas) where I want to append new info, like " - 3 new expenses added today".
I don’t want to overwrite what’s already in that column.
Unfortunately, I can’t use custom formulas, as the value field doesn’t allow me to insert dynamic column references.
I’m not using arrays, just plain text columns.
Is there any workaround for this within native Glide actions or a pattern I can follow?
There are several approaches, and using AI is probably the last option I would turn to.
The simplest option would be to use a standard edit form. The existing text will be shown in a Text Entry component, and the user can simply append to it and submit.
If for some reason you prefer not to do that, then you can use a simple custom form.
Capture the text to be appended in a User Specific Text column
Use a Template column to append the entered text to the original
Use a Set Column Values to overwrite the value in the original column with the Template value.
Hi everyone, thank you for your responses. I’m going to provide more context so the use case is clearer:
In my company, our employees upload purchase receipts, and then our operations team reviews and approves them for reimbursement.
Sometimes, the operations team needs to add specific notes to these receipts for future reference. For example:
An employee submits a receipt for 50 gloves. The operations team might add a note like: “Employee X purchased 50 gloves on Thursday, May 27. No additional glove purchases will be approved until July 1.”
A few days later, the same employee submits another receipt, this time for 3 Clorox bottles. The team then needs to add another note like: “Employee X purchased 3 Clorox bottles on May 30. No further Clorox purchases should be made until August 1.”
The key point here is that both notes need to coexist in the same column, since the operations team needs to consider the full context when reviewing future purchases.
The problem is that using the “Set column values” action overwrites the existing value, rather than appending the new note to it. I need to concatenate the current value with the new one, and i need to be able to delete or edit this notes after.
This is why suggestions like using the standard edit form are not helpful for this use case — the note is tied to a specific receipt and a specific employee, and it wouldn’t make sense for the note to appear globally or across unrelated records.
Is there any way to append (add) text to an existing column value without deleting it, using only Glide Tables and native actions?
Thanks in advance for your help!
pd: ill try your second approach @Darren_Murphy but let me know if with the full use case context you have another idea or approach
How many notes can be realistically attached to a receipt? A couple, a dozen, a hundred?
To save rows you could have note 1, note 2, note 3 note 4 in the receipt object up to a reasonable number.
When displaying, use a template to concatenate notes. Now you can mark a note deleted, so it won’t show up (using ITE). It adds many extra columns so it wouldn’t scale beyond a limited number of notes.
This wouldn’t be feasible with hundreds of notes but would be for a handful or a dozen notes.
Also, their is the the trebuchet method (@Robert_Petitto) for ‘flinging’ notes into a single column using multiple file column type but that might be overkill.
@Mateo
This is exactly how we do it in our apps especially while adding Notes or Comments. Additionally we also put User Name and Time when it is added.
