AppSheet Office Hours: Discover new AppSheet databases and No-Code Chat Apps

Published on โ€Ž10-14-2022 10:42 AM by | Updated on โ€Ž10-14-2022 10:43 AM

Join us for AppSheet Office Hours on November 3rd at 11AM PT to dive deeper into new platform enhancements that help improve both the app creator and end user experience - AppSheet databases and no-code Chat Apps.

AppSheet databases are the new first party, native datasource for organizing and managing data powering AppSheet apps. Our experts will demonstrate how to generate an app using AppSheet databases and explain how this new feature helps solve challenges around data formatting, making changes after initial app creation, scalability, sync speeds, and more. 

Additionally, with AppSheet No-Code Chat Apps, app creators can โ€‹โ€‹add chatbot functionality to their apps so that any AppSheet app can be published as a Chat App to a customerโ€™s Workspace Internal Marketplace with a single click and are available for free internal distribution in their organization.

Lastly, weโ€™ll show you a template that was built by the team in the spirit of real use cases. Weโ€™d like to give you a flavor of the depth that can be achieved using AppSheet.  

Save your spot by selecting the "Yes" button on the right, and ask your questions in advance by posting a comment below. 

We hope to see you there!

Meeting information:



Featured Guests

Staff


Staff

Staff


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Start:
Thu, Nov 3, 2022 11:00 AM PDT
End:
Thu, Nov 3, 2022 12:00 PM PDT
34 Comments
Lauren_vdv
Staff

The event recap is now live here, including written answers to your questions. Thank you!

Thomas_Varghese
Silver 1
Silver 1

Can we export data from the database to sheets as many reports are built from there in our organization. will there be a function or click to export to Google sheets. Like, specify the range like in import range formula.

meden1
Staff

Does the AppSheet database leverage any existing Google data storage technologies or is it "fully proprietary"?

Roderick
Staff

We're going live for today's Office Hours shortly! Join us to discover new AppSheet databases and No-Code Chat Apps.

 

dboody
Bronze 1
Bronze 1
Hmanty
Bronze 1
Bronze 1

Will there be possibility to add a timer. 

For examples I want to build an app that I can calculate how long does it take to do some chords. I would like to make a stop and star and continue buttons for that. 

And also I would need a cowntdown timer with adjustable starting time, and a sound alert when the time reaches zero. 

jehrl
Staff

Can we have a better integration with google calendar? Specifically, can you make the time zone editable? The assumption that the current user's time zone shall be used does not hold in international setups (e.g. bulk upload calendar events in various locations from a spreadsheet). 

Lauren_vdv
Staff

@martincalzada wrote:

Any chance of getting CSS control over the UI?


Hi @martincalzada, thanks for this question. Can you please expand on which UI you're referring to exactly? Thank you! 

 

Everything on the app's form itself, including input and display elements. If we wanted to change how the app itself is rendered, we might be able to simply change things using CSS without having to enable AppSheets to give us control through the editor. This is especially useful if we're embedding the app somewhere else, so as to match any style we might need.

If you are looking for greater control of app UI, explore the Flutter SDK. 

AppPowerON
Bronze 2
Bronze 2

Database:
I am struggling to understand the benefits to a data store based on Google Tables. It looks like one would need to build scripts to conduct simple tasks such as bulk adding or exporting rows from a table. I have no idea how else you would manipulate existing data. There are no formulas, so things that are so easily done on Google Sheets such as VLOOKUPs are not available. Relationships still need to be defined separately in AppSheet . I did not see  a performance benefit is a simple prototype as far as adding and updating individual records, so it would be helpful to have a very specific scenario to look at where performance (syncing and/or transactions) was improved over google sheets. In the end, Google Sheets are highly integrated with other sheets and other tools - this is very isolated and not likely to have a future ecosystem, so I do not really understand the investment in resources.

Web-Browser Dashboard
It will be very helpful to have a web-browser dashboard views that are more stable in the layout and more visually appealing, so I am looking forward to seeing the updates.

Charts
There are still basic features to charts that could turn them into a useful tool - most notably data labels on scatterplots. A grouping capabilty would drastically improve charts as well. There were new chart "features" introduced a few years back and I have never used them - my apps that have charts use the original charts because they work much better. Is this something that AppSheet can prioritize? 

IMHO, AppSheet is a great tool, but so much development focus seems to be on  entry level "features" that have little practical use and not much focus is on supporting real no-code innovation for experienced developers. Critical aspects of Bots seem still undeveloped or unexplained. Being able to schedule tasks in hourly increments would be great. The charts as mentioned above. OCR that can read and find fields in simple forms.... 

TY

George

Great thoughts!

Relationships, as far as I can tell, are managed in Appsheet Tables the same way we did them in Google Tables.   I believe that you will get (I am hoping so much!) a Google Table-like capability within Chat, Docs, and Sheets in addition to Appsheet Databases.

I agree with the web browser dashboard, but I have found lots of benefits with the power combo of Google Tables and Data Studio (now Looker).

"AppSheet is a no-code development platform that lets anyone without coding experience build mobile and web applications."

kurtvon
Bronze 1
Bronze 1

Can you please discuss how to make the dashboard more intuitive with better functionality. Would be great to import data directly into different slices within a dashboard instead of navigating to separate areas where that slice data can be captured. Why not have an option to add the data to a dashboard view.

Ju213
Bronze 3
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Can we create dashboard in appsheet Data base by pulling data in existing google sheets? This would be very useful. 

cmckissack
Bronze 1
Bronze 1

Our organization has been utilizing Google Tables extensively.  Will Google provide ways for us to port to Appsheet easily?  How long will we have before Google Tables are completely subsumed by Appsheet or will there be a Google Workspace component of Tables within Docs/Sheets?  I am very excited to go to the next step in Citizen Development with Google Workspace!

JLCGEOR1
Bronze 2
Bronze 2

Fuera excelente si lo tradujeran al espaรฑol

Jannik
Bronze 1
Bronze 1

Is it planned to allow references across appsheet databases? The current table limit per database requires me to create more than one appsheet database to develop my business logic.

Thomas_Varghese
Silver 1
Silver 1

 

The pricing for this database feature ..

will it be available with the core plan ?

then only it will be widely used by majority.