How to send shower thoughts to Coda using Siri Shortcuts

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How to send shower thoughts to Coda using Siri Shortcuts
How to send shower thoughts to Coda using Siri Shortcuts

Capture those fleeting shower thoughts straight into Coda

Capture those fleeting shower thoughts straight into Coda

Daniel van der Merwe

Introduction

Hello there 👋

You’re either here because you want to capture data into Coda from your iOS device using Siri Shortcuts or you’re tired of forgetting those great ideas you have in the shower. Either way I’ve got you covered!

Getting Set Up

Enable Developer Mode in Coda

First thing you’ll have to to is to enable Developer Mode in your

Coda account settings⁠

. Scroll down to the very bottom until you see "Labs." Toggle "Enable Developer Mode" to ON.

With Enable Developer Mode turned on in your account settings, you can easily copy table and column IDs. More on this later.

Configure API Key

On your Coda

account settings⁠

, scroll down until you see "API SETTINGS" and click Generate API Token. Copy and paste that API token into the field below.

If you want to send some

Shower Thoughts⁠

this doc you can leave the API Key unchanged below.

API Key:

8af93456-e7ae-4e4c-9f13-aa457f55386e

No results from filter

⁠

Configure Document ID

You can get the the doc ID from your Coda doc by copying and pasting all the characters after the _d in the URL of your Coda doc (should be about 10 characters) up to but not including the /. You can also use the Doc ID Extractor tool in the

Coda API docs⁠

. Copy and paste your doc ID into the Document ID cell below.

If you want to reset your Siri Shortcut to use this doc 👉

click here

⁠

Document ID:

At4icMg9GS

No results from filter

⁠

Configure Table ID

This is how you get the table id of the table you want to send your ideas to:

⁠

After you copied the table id you can paste it below:

Table ID:

grid-OmaHn167Yq

No results from filter

⁠

Configure Column IDs

This is how you get a column ID:

⁠

This shortcut currently supports two columns. A Text and a Date. You can paste the respective IDs below:

Text Column ID:

c-28iG4lhzUR

Date Column ID:

c-9LGqnx3nCZ

No results from filter

⁠

Setting up the Shortcut

To install this shortcut on your iOS device Apple requires you to opt in by enabling untrusted sources for Siri Shortcuts on your iOS devices. You can

follow the steps listed here⁠

to configure this.

In case it’s not clear you can use this doc to configure the shortcut settings for any doc, not just this one. Here is a summary table of all the fields needed to make this shortcut work:

API Key:

8af93456-e7ae-4e4c-9f13-aa457f55386e

Document ID:

At4icMg9GS

Table ID:

grid-OmaHn167Yq

Text Column ID:

c-28iG4lhzUR

Date Column ID:

c-9LGqnx3nCZ

There are no rows in this table

⁠

You can come back to this doc any time you need to set up another version of this Shortcut to capture information into Coda. You can even create a version of this that is a log book to keep track of every time you give your doggo a treat 🐕

Copy the below info somewhere so it is available on iPhone/iPad or open this doc in the

Coda app⁠

⁠

Fire off the shortcut and see your amazing ideas come in on

Shower Thoughts⁠

⁠

Install Siri Shortcut

⁠

Here's the link if you want to send it to your iOS device:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/32df52d739ae496fa197185256b59218

⁠

Final Notes

I don't recommend using your phone in the shower.

It’s also worth noting that the Siri Shortcut can be triggered from your home screen or from the share sheet. So it’s also great for sending articles and links to websites to Coda from your phone’s browser.

It sometimes takes a while for data to show in Coda so that's why a timestamp is sent in the payload from Siri Shortcuts as there might be a delay between when you posted your amazing

Shower Thoughts⁠

and when the data was actually created.

A nice improvement would be to also send through a category picked from a list. Some people have so many great ideas they need to categorise them! I kept it simple in this example to provide a solid base for people to tinker with and build on. If you have a more advanced workflow and would like some advice you're welcome to contact me on

Twitter⁠

send me a mail⁠

⁠

Introduction

Getting Set Up

Enable Developer Mode in Coda

Configure API Key

Configure Document ID

Configure Table ID

Configure Column IDs

Setting up the Shortcut

Final Notes