# A few advanced tips for canvas column type **URL:** \ **Category:** News from Superhuman\ **Created:** [February 24, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://connect.superhuman.com/t/a-few-advanced-tips-for-canvas-column-type/29074 "2022-02-24T16:24:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 17
**Author:** ![Nikola\_Lajic](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/coda1/user_avatar/connect.superhuman.com/nikola_lajic/32/21708_2.png) [@Nikola\_Lajic](https://connect.superhuman.com/u/Nikola_Lajic)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2022, 10:59am UTC](https://connect.superhuman.com/t/a-few-advanced-tips-for-canvas-column-type/29074/17 "2022-02-25T10:59:33Z")
This is a great addition. There are currently two drawbacks which when properly resolved will make this feature much more flexible. **parentRow is not available from template pages**. For which there are currently two workarounds: - To embed the template in the same (or a different) table as @Kelsey_Chan suggested. - or to create a formula on your template page The first approach is simpler and more future proof if you don’t mind having additional columns and filtering out template data. The second approach lets you have template pages and reference parentRow but might break at some point, and also you need to hide the various formulas on the page. **Referencing data from child canvases is difficult**. There are some interesting use cases where for example the status of the parentRow depends on the state of tasks in a table within a canvas cell (basically a formula row that says that the parent row is done only when all tasks in the canvas cell are done). This is difficult to do correctly as canvas cells can all be different so there is no way to guarantee that a canvas cell will even contain a table. Here is an idea for the future, and a workaround: - Allow select lists to be displayed as as inline tables. This guarantees that all the cells are the same and can be easily referenced from the parent row. There are some hacks to do this but they are complicated and unreliable. For additional “freeform” data it can simply be added to another canvas column, the data doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same column. Although this still leaves the problem of referencing controls or formulas within a canvas cell. - A workaround: in your template add a formula like this I hope someone finds these workarounds helpful. --- _[View the full topic](https://connect.superhuman.com/t/a-few-advanced-tips-for-canvas-column-type/29074)._