Can I reference a column to a separate document?
What do you mean by “a separate document”?
There’s an Attachment column that allows you to attach a document.
If you’re meaning a different table, you can add a Reference column and then specify which table and column you want referenced.
There’s also several different lookup functions that can be used in Formula columns. Grist Function Reference - Lookup
It’s difficult to provide a better answer given the lack of specificity in your question.
I have two separate documents in my Home workspace. I was wanting to make a column in one reference to the other document but the other document was not an option in setting up the reference type column. But after sleeping and looking at it again, I may have just set things up wrong and will have to reconfigure. But it is possible, correct?
I don’t think it’s directly possible…ie through a reference column because the data resides in different databases. I think the only way it would be possible would be through the use of the web API.
If it is all related data, the recommendation would be to keep it all in one document. All of the data in a Grist document is stored in a SQLite database, so keep that in mind as you’re working with it.
Ok, so there’s no way to link two documents even if they’re in the same workspace? I’m new to Grist and creating databases so just trying to figure out what all I can do.
Another Grist newbie here – but I am familiar with several vendors’ database software, including SQLite, which Grist uses.
What Grist calls a Document, database vendors call a database: a collection of database tables, and information about those tables. Databases tend to be self-contained. A table can cross-reference rows in another table, but only within the same database. Other databases are worlds unto themselves.
For Grist purposes, any rows that you want to cross-reference easily probably belong in the same database.
Grist does have a way out, but it’s indirect, and a bit of work to set up. There is a way to give a row a web address, so it could be referenced from anywhere in the world. That would include rows in other Documents. The reference would be a URL.
So, not a normal Reference column. But it does have some uses.