AppSheet to GlideApps

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1

Hi everyone.
This is my first post on this community.

I’ve been an active user and member of the AppSheet community, but I don’t like the way things are going lately.
I took a look at Glide a couple of weeks ago and apart from the automation part that AppSheet provides, it seems like it’s a good replacement for me.

I don’t know if I’m completely right about this but is it true that all of the automation stuff is managed by third parties here? I mean Zapier, Make (aka Integromat), etc?

If so, something that’s powerful and easy on AppSheet like sending email reports and make paginated reports may be a big hussle and, at the same time, more expensive to do here.

What are the solutions you have used to make reports via GlideApps?
About the same thing, how can you display child records on a report using GlideApps?

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2

Yeah, we usually pass info through a Zapier integration or a webhook to Make/Integromat.

Sending email is available as an action, but it’s only on Private Pro level.

I usually use PDFMonkey to build templates and dynamically generate reports through Make/Integromat.

I’m not sure I understand your question here, do you mean showing it on a table in the generated report? Do you have an example?

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3

It looks great. I’m already using HTML/CSS with my templates on AppSheet anyway

Kinda like that.
Not necesarily a table but that’s ths most common scenario.
An invoice with invoice items as children where they are added to the template as rows on a table. But this can be any kind of repeated thing.

We have ‘Template Start:’ expressions on AppSheet, which are a way to tell the backend we need to repeat a certain part of the template (like a row) the same amount of times as rows are pulled via the expression.

Now that I think about it and since I already made an app using Glide, is this done here sending an array on our JSON using webhooks?

4

This is basically:
How can I share the content of the rows on a Relation column with match multiple by triggering a webhook on the parent table?

5
  • Use a template column in the child table to construct a JSON object for each row
  • Use a joined list column in the parent table to gather all rows (via the relation) into a collection
  • Use a template column in the parent table (if necessary) to build a final JSON object from the joined list
  • Send that through the webhook
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6

Makes sense.
I’m going to try it and come back with comments.

Thx

7

In what way did AppSheet change? I used it before Glide came on the horizon.

8

Strong focus on Google integration which is useless for a non-Google user like myself

9

Ah, of course!

10

I’m looking for a platform that’s at least partially compromised with their community and users and not focused on just their own interests.
Google owning AppSheet was a move that killed what made AppSheet special from it’s people pov.
Now it’s just a powerful platform that can go anywhere without prior notice and that’s what make me hate about it now.

It’s not the only platform, and eventhough pricing on GlideApps makes it unapealing for me at first, I’m learning it to have another tool that I can make use of.

To make things clear, AppSheet is not broken, it works fine for my needs (I made ERP-like apps which interact with about 40+ tables). The problem is that I feel like it’s going anywhere, and I hope I can feel better here.

GlideApps and AppSheet are actually very different, I wouldn’t say one is better than the other. Something that makes one awesome is not present on the other one and viceversa.

I hope you are open to more questions because for sure I’ll need to ask new things on my journey

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11

HI @Darren_Murphy
Thanks for your suggestions, it seems like you already did something like this in the past and that’s what I needed.
Now, I don’t get the third point.
I was able to make a JSON object on each row and make an array on the parent table but since I understand JSON but I haven’t studied yet, can you show me a litle example of the thing I need to do to build a JSON from the list/array I already made (collection)?
My collection column looks like this:

[{
"field1":"data1"
}, {
"field2":"data2"
}
]

When I send this through webhook, it’s a string and not an array for Make, that’s where I’m not so sure what to do next

12

Your JSON looks a little wonky. I’d expect to see something like this:

[
  {
    "name":"joe",
    "age:":"25"
  },
  {
    "name":"fred",
    "age":"23"
  }
]

On the Make side, you’ll need two modules.

  • Firstly, a JSON module to parse the JSON payload
  • Secondly, an Iterator to process each item in the collection

Here is an example of what it might look like (ignore the Data Store module):

Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 9.12.21 PM
Screen Shot 2022-04-11 at 9.12.21 PM2580×868 186 KB

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13

Thanks @Darren_Murphy
As far as I know, indentation is not a problem, rather a preference, so even if it looks weird it shouldn’t have any effect on the parsing phase. Am I right?

[
  {
    "field1":"data1"
  },
  {
    "field1":"data2"
  }
]

I’m going to try to parse the data on Make and I’ll be back with more comments.
I appreciate your time

14

Yeah. I misinterpreted your earlier post. The way it was presented it appeared as though there was a separate collection item for each attribute.

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15

Got it, I placed “field1” and then “field2” on the second object by mistake

16

Although there are always risks involved when working with tools by young companies, Glide included!

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