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Collections

What is a Collection?

A Collection is LEAST's configurable workflow and data engine. Every collection is a self-describing system with:

  • Fields (FX) — the data schema: text, select, date, URL, rating, etc.
  • Records (DX) — the actual data rows
  • Interactions (IX) — a full audit trail of every action taken on every record
  • Views (GX) — named, filtered lenses for reading and writing data

Collections power requests, task trackers, content registers, review queues, and more. They are far more than simple lists — each is a mini workflow engine.

Creating a Collection

  1. Navigate to an association → Collections → New Collection
  2. Enter a name and choose a template (Blank, or a pre-built template like Requests, Jira-style, or GitHub Issues)
  3. The collection is created with the chosen field schema

Managing Fields

  1. Open a collection → Admin → Fields
  2. Add, reorder, or configure fields
  3. Field types: text, textarea, select, boolean, yes/no, number, date, URL, email, multiselect, currency, rating, colour, lookup

Managing Views

Views (GX groups) control what records are visible and what fields are shown for different users or purposes:

  1. Open a collection → Admin → Views
  2. Each view has: a name, a SQL filter (which records to show), a field list, and API access settings
  3. Views can be set to read-only or read/write for API callers

Actions

Actions record what happened to a record. Every create, update, and status change is an action:

  1. Open a collection → Admin → Actions
  2. Define action names (e.g. “Submitted”, “Under Review”, “Approved”, “Closed”)
  3. Actions can have pre-filled field values (e.g. auto-set status to “Closed” when the Approve action is taken)

Swim Lanes

Collections can be displayed as a Kanban-style swim lane board:

  1. Open collection admin → Enable Swim Lanes
  2. Create lane groups (e.g. “To Do”, “In Progress”, “Done”)
  3. Records can be dragged between lanes from the collection view

Row-Level Security

To restrict records so each user only sees their own:

  1. Open collection admin → Enable Row-Level Security
  2. Set the view's RLS mode to Owner (each user sees only their records) or Custom (SQL filter)
  3. API Admin users bypass RLS and see all records

API Access

Collections are accessible via the Collection API. Enable API on individual views, set the write action, and share credentials with integrators.