We've broken down the basic app-making process into 7 steps.
This guide shows you how to create an app directly from your existing data in the AppSheet editor.
Prepare your data
Open the spreadsheet or database you would like to use for your app. AppSheet lets you choose from an array of data sources like Google Sheets, Excel, Cloud SQL, and more. To make sure AppSheet can read your data appropriately, set up your data with column headers in the first row, and rows of data underneath. If you’d like, you can also start from a prebuilt app template.
Connect your data to AppSheet
AppSheet never hosts your data, but interacts with it based on how you set up your app.
You can connect data to AppSheet in a couple ways:
If you already have an AppSheet account, you can connect to a new database by going to your My Apps page and clicking on “Make a new app”.
If you are using Google Sheets, you can connect your data to AppSheet directly from your Sheet by clicking Extensions > AppSheet > Create an app.
Familiarize yourself with the AppSheet Editor
You are now in the AppSheet editor! The first thing you’ll see is a welcome message with a preview of your app.
Once you close this window, you’ll see this live preview on the right side of the AppSheet editor.
Each page you see in your app is known as a view. Notice that AppSheet may suggest views based on the data you connected it to. Hopefully these are views you want to have in your app, but if not, no worries! We’ll learn how to update views soon.
On the left side of the editor you’ll see your primary menu, with a number of tabs:
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Home gives you suggested next steps and access to educational resources.
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Info lets you see and manage the technical details of your app.
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Data lets you define how AppSheet interacts with your data.
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UX lets you create and customize views, along with the look and feel of your app.
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Automation lets you create modular bots that can automate certain tasks such as sentiment analysis and optical character recognition.
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Security lets you set up user roles and define security features.
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Intelligence lets you incorporate machine learning into your app, such as sentiment analysis and optical character recognition.
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Users enables you to share your app and manage who has access to it.
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Manage allows you to track and control your app's authors, deployment state, and usage.
Finally, whenever you make edits to your app, you’ll see the save button in the top right corner turn blue. Make sure you click on it so your edits are saved. Saved changes are immediately available to use in your app.
Define how your connected data will be used
Before you build your app interface, you will want to specify how your data is being used in the Data tab.
Add additional tables to your app by going to Data > Tables and click on “New Table”.
In Data > Columns, you’ll see a list of each column you have in your table listed in a field. By either clicking on the pencil to the left of each field, you can adjust settings for how the app will interact with your data. Here’s two examples of the settings you can adjust here:
Type lets you specify what type of data is in that column. For example, if you have an “Email” column in your data, you need to make sure that column type is set to Email.
Show lets you select whether or not this data will be displayed in your app (some data you may want to keep hidden)
The Data section can initially feel a little overwhelming, as there are a lot of powerful features available in it, but don’t worry–as you create your views, you’ll be able to go back and adjust it as needed. Plus, we provide a lot of resources to help you know what to do.
Create views and customize look and feel
AppSheet makes it easy to create and customize views by providing ready-to-use view types that you can customize. To create a view, go to the UX tab (UX stands for user experience, or how people interact with your app), click on the Views section and select “New View”.
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For this data lets you can select the table you want the View to connect to.
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View Type lets you can choose what view you want, such as Calendar, Map, Charts, and Table.
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Position lets you choose how users will find this view using.
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View Options lets you customize your view.
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If you scroll down to the Display Section, you can also choose an icon for your view, and edit your view’s Display name.
To customize your app’s look and feel, go to UX>Brand and UX>Format Rules, where you can specify your theme, colors, logos, and more!
Create bots to run automations
AppSheet makes it easy for anyone to automate their work by creating bots. Every bot will have three components: an event, tasks, and processes.
An event is something that happens that triggers your bot to run. It could be a certain type of day, such as “every Friday at 11:00 a.m.” or it could be a change in your data, such as “When a new item is added to our inventory app.”
A task is the action you want to happen when your event occurs, such as “Send an email” You can have multiple tasks for one event.
A process allows you to combine your tasks into steps and customize how you want them to occur with conditional logic.
AppSheet gives you full control over how each bot should be run, but you can also create a bot by simply selecting New Bot then typing what you want it to do.
You can create bots for a wide variety of things, such as sending an email, SMS, or notification, updating data in other tables, or creating and saving reports.
Test, share, and deploy your app with users
Whenever you’re ready, you can easily share your app with others to test it.
Go to the Users tab, and in the Users section type the email addresses for the people you want to share your app with.
Once you verify you’re human, you can customize the email message they will receive from AppSheet, inviting them to use your app. From there, they can either download the AppSheet app on their device, or open it in a web browser.
Finally, once you’ve finished making changes to your app, you can officially deploy it, which will activate all the services in your app. Go to Manage>Deploy>Deployment Check and click “Run Deployment Check.”
AppSheet will analyze your app to make sure it’s working properly and give you a full report. If you’re ready for it to be deployed, select “Move app to deployed state.” Your app is now live!
Congratulations on creating your first app! From here, you can continue improving your app or start on your next idea. AppSheet provides numerous resources you can use to learn how to leverage the platform and build your own tailored apps.
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tutorials
Find more tutorials on our YouTube channel and blog.
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