Hi Everyone. We are heavy users of Airtable and Stacker and want to deep-dive explore Glide as a replacement for Stacker. Have a few questions:
Multi-Apps
We separate main functions in our company (Sales & Marketing, Finance & Accounting, HR & Directory, etc…) and have multiple Apps (one for each function) in our Workspace in Stacker. I am curious how we would achive this in Glide mobile apps, as having mobile apps is such a nice thing we see in Glide:
a. Would we need to squeeze in all Apps mentioned above into 1 single mobel app in Glide? Would that be too much and cluttered? I am presuming it is pointless to have more htan one mobile app for our team members/staff?
b. …or is there a way to have the app Menu have sub-heading?
Copy/Past
In the case the answer to the above question, is to have mulitple apps, is it then possible to copy parts of an app and paste it to another app we are in the process of building? For example, if we have a Table of Customers (with some interactive workflows in it) in a Sales & Marketing App, but then we later decide to move it to a Directory App, it this possible? Or would be have to manaully rebuild the Customer feature in the Directory App?
You could include multiple tabs in a single app. Or you could develop multiple separate apps that would share some or all tables. Or you could developer multiple separate apps that would have their own tables. It’s up to how you would like to structure your apps within your company and to what extent tab and tables are shared between functions in your company. If Sales & Marketing tabs and tables are totally different to those of Finance & Accounting, then they might as well have different apps. I think this would be akin to saying “If Sales & Marketing and Finance & Accounting have different processes just like they might have different speadsheets and wikis, then they might as well have different apps.”
It depends on how big an app each function needs. If each function needs 3-10 tabs each, then your app could quickly become cluttered. If each function needs 1 tab each and you have 4-5 functions in your company, then maybe one single app with 4-5 tabs would be manageable.
Some parts of an app can be reused in another app, others not:
Data editor (the data part): Tables can be shared across multiple apps. Only basic data is shared, not computed data. Computed data needs to be built app by app. In general, one can copy-paste groups of cells from one table to another, though there happens to be a pasting bug these days (late Sep. '23) that we hope will be fixed soon.
Layout editor (the layout part): Layout elements such as tabs, containers and components cannot be shared across multiple apps. However, components can be copy-pasted within the same app on different screens, as well as copy-pasted from one app to another. This is not sharing per se, but this can be a time saver. Copy-pasting components within an app maintains their configuration, but I believe configuration is not maintained with copy-pasting across apps.
Action editor (workflows): Nothing can be neither shared nor copy-pasted across apps.
Settings (settings at the app level such as general appearance, privacy settings, integrations, sign-in screen, etc.): Nothing can be neither shared nor copy-pasted across apps.
@nathanaelb thank you very much for the clarifications. That helps a lot.
Just to get further clarification on the point you mentioned that “if each function only has 1 tab, then one single app would still be manageable.” In Glide, Can a tab only be a table? or can a Tab just be the function name, like Sales & Marketing, and then someway have multiple “sub-Tabs” that are actually connected to a Table’s data?
I am asking if we can aim to have a single company App, but make the tabs the function home screen, with multiple sub-tabs in them, all connected to different tables?
You can imagine a mobile app or web app on Glide is similar to a website. The items one clicks or taps in the navigation – in the navigation bar, hamburger menu, tabs are the bottom of the screen – would be the “tabs”. Tabs are like top pages.
A tab can pull in data from any table. Thought there are constraints. Cases range from simple to complex: simple where you can display any collection of items (full table) on any tab, and complex where the developer will connect tables and move data from one to the other to.
You could have 3 tabs: Sales & Marketing, Finance & Accounting, HR. Another way of seeing it is you could have three homes: home1, home2, home3. Depending on the privacy settings you set, employee could see only the home (or tab) they need to see. Or, you could have one single home with various sets of components, each set would be for each function, and employees would see only the set they need to see (again with visibility conditions). My preference here would be different tab.
Single company app, like an intranet or employee portal: yes. See the pricing page to understand the thresholds on each plan.
Different tabs can be the home screen for different functions: yes, with visibility conditions.
Sub-tabs: there is no notion of sub-tabs in Glide. Your application would have tabs other than the home and these tabs could be shared by functions or proper to each function.
All connected to different tables: tabs can pull in data from any table. As mentioned above, there are contraints and depending one what you want to achieve it could be straightforward or tricky. Either way most likely it’s doable.
