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Quanty Ghost

Quanty Ghost is for columns whose values should stay inside your organization: salaries, margins, personal ID numbers, private phone numbers, the notes you keep about a client. For everyone in the organization a ghost column is still an ordinary column. The grid, the record window, chat, AI columns, dashboards and presentations and financial analysis read it exactly as before, so nobody has to work around it.

What changes is the way out. Exports, shared links, integrations, automation messages and web searches leave a ghost column out whenever the organization blocks that channel, and every channel starts blocked.

A ghost column carries a ghost icon in its header, on board cards and in the record window. Hovering it says "Ghost column: usable inside Quanty, left out of blocked outbound channels."

Making a column ghost

Two places do the same thing:

  • The column header menu. Right-click a column header and choose Make ghost. A toast confirms "Column is now a ghost".
  • The column settings. Edit column opens the settings, where the Ghost column switch is available for every column type: "Values stay usable inside Quanty but are left out of exports, shared links and other blocked channels."

Nothing is recomputed. The values stay where they are and no AI cell runs again; only what may leave the organization changes.

Who can turn it on and off

Anyone who can edit the table can make a column ghost, because that only ever narrows what leaves. Releasing a ghost widens it, so only an organization admin can do that, with Release from ghost in the same menu or the switch in the column settings. For everyone else the entry is greyed out: "Only an organization admin can release a ghost column." A successful release shows "Column released from ghost".

There is no side door either:

  • Undo never releases a ghost. Undoing an older change to the column's settings keeps the ghost switch on; undo can still turn ghost on.
  • A ghost column that becomes a sub-sheet stays a ghost.

Inherited ghosts

A value copied out of a ghost column is as sensitive as the original, so a column that reads a ghost column is treated as a ghost too. Quanty works this out by itself. Nothing extra is stored, and nobody has to remember to mark the copies:

  • an AI or Python column whose prompt @-mentions a ghost column;
  • a Lookup or Rollup column that pulls in a ghost column from the linked rows;
  • an AI column that reads a ghost column of another table through Related sheets;
  • an AI column that reads the documents in a ghost file column.

It carries on down the chain and across tables: a column that reads an inherited ghost is one as well.

The header menu shows such a column as Ghost (inherited), greyed out, with "This column reads a ghost column. Release that column to release this one." In the column settings the switch says "Already a ghost because it reads a ghost column." When the column stops reading the ghost column, or that column is released, the inherited ghost goes away by itself.

The Quanty Ghost settings

Organization admins set the policy under Settings → Organizations → Quanty Ghost. The tab explains itself: "Mark sensitive columns as ghost. Their values stay fully usable inside the organization but are left out of every outbound channel blocked below."

Outbound channels

Each channel has a switch that reads Blocked or Allowed, and a saved change shows "Channel settings saved". Ghost columns never leave through a blocked channel.

ChannelWhat it covers
ExportsCSV, XLSX and PDF table downloads, and report downloads from cells
Shared linksShared boards, calendars, timelines, dashboards and presentations
IntegrationsGoogle Sheets sync and other connectors
EmailEmails sent by automations, from Quanty or a connected mailbox
WhatsAppWhatsApp messages sent by automations
WebhooksWebhooks called by automations
Web searchLive web searches that AI columns build from row values
Government registriesPublic registries and government systems, such as the VAT white list

Government registries has no switch. It reads Always blocked, and no one can open it.

Allowing a channel is a decision for the whole organization: from then on ghost columns go out through it like any other column. The list starts with everything blocked, so a new ghost column is protected from the first minute.

Under the channels the tab adds: "A ghost email or phone column can still be the recipient of an automation. Its value is never put into the message itself."

Ghost columns

The second list, Ghost columns, shows every column marked ghost on the tables you can see, grouped by table. Each has Release and Open table. Inherited ghosts are not listed, because they follow the column they read. With no ghost columns yet, the list says "No ghost columns yet. Right-click a column header and choose Make ghost."

What happens on each channel

The rules below apply while a channel is blocked. On an allowed channel ghost columns behave like any other column.

Exports

CSV, XLSX and PDF downloads of a table leave ghost columns out, inherited ones included. When the table has a ghost column, the export menu says so at the top: "Ghost columns are left out".

A report downloaded from a cell is refused when its column is a ghost, because a report cannot be partly hidden. A report column that reads a ghost column is itself an inherited ghost. The message is "This is a Quanty Ghost column. Its values cannot leave through this channel."

This covers public links and organization-only links alike. The share menu shows "Ghost columns are left out" when the shared item draws on a ghost column.

  • Boards. Card fields from ghost columns are dropped. A ghost title column leaves the card titles blank. A ghost column the board is stacked by puts every card into a single unlabelled lane, so neither the lane names nor the counts per lane go out. Work item fields held by a ghost column (key, type, priority, labels, status) are left off the card face.
  • Calendars and timelines. A ghost date column leaves no events at all, because the date is the placement. A ghost end date shrinks every bar to its start day. Ghost title, colour and group columns blank the titles and drop the colours and swimlanes.
  • Dashboards and presentations. A widget, chart series, KPI item or slide bound to a ghost column is left out, and a table snapshot loses the ghost columns. A slide with nothing left is skipped.

Integrations

Pushing a table to Google Sheets leaves ghost columns out, even when the export mapping was set up before the column became a ghost. A new export mapping that names a ghost column is refused with the same message as above. Importing into Quanty is not affected: that is data coming in.

Email, WhatsApp and webhooks

Automations fill their templates from the row. A placeholder that names a ghost column, such as {{Salary}}, renders empty in an email subject or body, a WhatsApp message, or a webhook's headers and body. It is never left as the raw placeholder. The run's step notes it: {{Salary}} is a Ghost column, so its value was left out. Record digests that list several rows leave ghost columns out.

A report or generated file from a ghost column is not attached. The email still goes out, and the step names the column: "Contract" is a Ghost column, so its file was not attached.

The recipient is the one exception. A ghost email or phone column can still be the address an automation sends to, because the message cannot be delivered without it, but its value is never written into the message.

Actions that stay inside Quanty, such as notifying someone in the app or updating or creating a record, read every column as before.

An AI column with live web search builds its search query from the row. A ghost column's @-mention is left empty in the query that goes to the search provider. The AI column itself still sees every value when it writes the answer; only the query leaving Quanty is filtered.

Government registries

This channel is always blocked. An AI column that is or reads a ghost column skips its VAT white list and NBP exchange rate checks, and it says they were not checked, so nothing is presented as verified. When chat is asked to check a number held in a ghost column against the VAT white list, the check does not run, and chat tells you it was not checked and why.

What Ghost cannot trace

Ghost follows values through columns and the bindings that point at them. Some things have no such thread:

  • Text written by hand. If a person types a ghost value into a document page or a comment, or an AI writes it into dashboard or slide text that is not bound to a column, Quanty cannot know where it came from. A widget or slide with no binding is shared as it is.
  • Internal output. Presentations and other files a member downloads from inside Quanty are internal output, made by someone who can already see the values. Ghost does not filter them.
  • People. Everyone in the organization sees ghost values. Ghost keeps them out of Quanty's outbound channels; it does not stop a member from copying a value somewhere else.

Ghost is about what leaves

Use member roles and table access to decide who inside the organization sees a table. Use Ghost to decide what may leave the organization once they do.