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  • Book Overview & Buying Democratizing Application Development with AppSheet
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Democratizing Application Development with AppSheet

Democratizing Application Development with AppSheet

By : Koichi Tsuji, Suvrutt Gurjar, Takuya Miyai
4.8 (8)
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Democratizing Application Development with AppSheet

Democratizing Application Development with AppSheet

4.8 (8)
By: Koichi Tsuji, Suvrutt Gurjar, Takuya Miyai
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

Many citizen developers regularly use spreadsheets in their business and day-to-day jobs. With AppSheet, you can take your spreadsheets to the next level by enhancing their ease of use. The platform allows you to run your business efficiently and manage it in the field outside of an office or indoor environment. This book enables you to create your own simple or medium to complex hybrid apps for business or personal use. As a beginner to AppSheet, this book will show you how the AppSheet Editor works and how it is used to configure, test, and deploy an app and share it with others as users or co-authors. You’ll learn about widely used features such as how to use data sources, create app views and actions, construct expressions with AppSheet functions, and make your app secure through security and UX options. Next, you’ll create email/attachment templates and develop reports/documents based on templates, store in the cloud, and send files through emails. You’ll also understand how to integrate third-party services and monitor various usage statistics of your app. As you progress, you’ll explore various features with the help of sample apps that you create using the book. By the end of this book, you’ll have learned how to make the most of AppSheet to build powerful and efficient applications.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
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Preface
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Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
AppSheet editor styles used in this book
Downloading/referring the sample apps
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Share Your Thoughts
Download a free PDF copy of this book
1
Part 1 – Introduction and Getting Started
Part 1 – Introduction and Getting Started
Free Chapter
2
Chapter 1: Getting Started with AppSheet
Chapter 1: Getting Started with AppSheet
How AppSheet apps are generally built
Prerequisites
Converting your ideas into an AppSheet app
Summary
3
Part 2 – App Editor and Main Features
Part 2 – App Editor and Main Features
4
Chapter 2: Understanding App Editor and Data Sources
Chapter 2: Understanding App Editor and Data Sources
Preparing your data in the right format
Creating a new app from your own data
Exploring the basics of the AppSheet editor
Analyzing the table and column settings
Summary
5
Chapter 3: Presenting App Data with UX/Views
Chapter 3: Presenting App Data with UX/Views
Technical requirements
Reviewing the basics of the UX pane
UX – view types
Controlling actions associated with view events
Format rules to highlight important data
Branding with theme colors and icons
Managing the app’s internal terminology through the Localize tab
Summary
6
Chapter 4: Manipulating Data with Functions and Expressions
Chapter 4: Manipulating Data with Functions and Expressions
Technical requirements
Understanding functions, expressions and AppSheet Expression Assistant
Making decisions with Yes/No functions and expressions
Making decisions with conditional functions and expressions
Manipulating text with text functions and expressions
Manipulating multiple values with list functions and expressions
Performing arithmetic calculations with math functions and expressions
Performing date, time, and duration calculations with date and time expressions
Performing record-level operations with table functions and expressions
Understanding important miscellaneous functions
Using multiple functions in single expressions
Summary
7
Chapter 5: Manipulating Data with Behaviors and Actions
Chapter 5: Manipulating Data with Behaviors and Actions
Technical requirements
Understanding actions and action types
Using app actions for navigation and working with CSV files
Configuring data change actions
Using external actions for external communications
Sequentially executing multiple actions with grouped actions
Offline or sync behavior of an app
Summary
8
Chapter 6: Controlling App Users and Data Security
Chapter 6: Controlling App Users and Data Security
Controlling who can access an app
Adding app users to your apps and defining editing permissions
Controlling permission levels with expressions
Controlling what data is sent to a user’s device and security options
Summary
9
Chapter 7: Managing the App Environment
Chapter 7: Managing the App Environment
Analyzing app features and transferring the app ownership
Performing app version management
Deploying an app with all features
Monitoring app usage and app sync performance
Sending on-demand messages to app users
Summary
10
Part 3 – Advanced Features and External Services
Part 3 – Advanced Features and External Services
11
Chapter 8: Automating Recurring Data Changes and Scheduling Tasks
Chapter 8: Automating Recurring Data Changes and Scheduling Tasks
What is AppSheet Automation?
Understanding a Bot and its components
Event – Data change or Schedule
How is a Process constructed?
Learning about Bot setup through a practical example
Summary
12
Chapter 9: Using Intelligence and Advanced Features
Chapter 9: Using Intelligence and Advanced Features
Enabling advanced features
Searching data from an app with Smart Assistant
Building your own predictive models
Building an OCR model
What are AppSheet OCR models?
Summary
13
Chapter 10: Extending App Capabilities with Third-Party Services
Chapter 10: Extending App Capabilities with Third-Party Services
Technical requirements
Displaying images with dynamic text
Using QuickChart to generate a dynamic chart as an image
Integrating with Google Workspace products
Google Apps Script and use cases
Summary
14
Part 4 – App Templates and Tricks for App Building
Part 4 – App Templates and Tricks for App Building
15
Chapter 11: Building More Apps with App Templates
Chapter 11: Building More Apps with App Templates
Creating your apps portfolio for other app creators
Using others’ app templates to help with your app development
Building templates for your self-reference
Summary
16
Chapter 12: Tips and Tricks
Chapter 12: Tips and Tricks
Technical requirements
Formulas (expressions)
Actions
Column settings
App settings
Bots and automation
Views
Summary
17
Chapter 13: Appendix
Chapter 13: Appendix
Joining the AppSheet community to be a citizen developer
AppSheet is growing endlessly
Summary
18
Index
Index
Why subscribe?
19
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To get the most out of this book

Before you start to build your apps, you need to create a Google account, as you need to have access to Google Drive, Google Sheets, and other Google services, such as Google Docs. You can create a new account at https://accounts.google.com/signup.

When the Google account is created (skip creation if you already have an account, of course), it’s time to create your AppSheet account. Follow these steps to create an AppSheet account:

  1. Go to www.appsheet.com and log in with your Google account from the top-right corner.
  2. Click the Get started button. Then, select the name of the cloud service to be used for authentication. Select Google. After that, follow the guide so that you give permission for AppSheet to have access to your data by using your Google account.
Figure 1.1 – The AppSheet home page

Figure 1.1 – The AppSheet home page

  1. Now, your account is generated and tied to your Google account.

You will also now have your AppSheet account ID, which is a seven-digit number. This account ID is used when a new app is created. Your unique app name will look similar to Inventory-5689905. As you created your AppSheet account with your Google account, all your images, files, and templates will be stored in Google Drive by default.

When creating any kind of app, it needs a data source. It could be a spreadsheet, such as a Google sheet or Excel file in OneDrive, or even a real database, such as a cloud SQL database. Whatever the data source is, it always needs to be in the cloud. For example, trying to connect an Excel file from your laptop or phone won’t be possible, as that file is not in the cloud. These are the data sources you can use with an AppSheet app:

  • Google
  • Google Calendar/Drive
  • Microsoft Excel Online
  • Smartsheet
  • Airtable
  • Salesforce
  • Dropbox
  • Box
  • Apigee
  • OData
  • BiqQuery
  • A cloud database (SQL, for example)

In this book, we will use Google Sheets as a data source because it’s one of the most common ones. Therefore, please make sure to access AppSheet using a Google account to follow along with this book.

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