Multiple apps - one sheet?

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What happens if I want to build multiple apps on one sheet?

E.G.
Internal app
Customer facing app
App for vendors

Would the sheet have multiple read-only sheets like logins, or comments, for each app?
Could each app have separate User Profiles?

Are there any deep dives on this kind of environment, or any video examples?

Any general advice, pitfalls, things to be mindful of?

It would be nice to build a whole system on one sheet and bypass lots of integration amongst sheets.

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I do that for my covid testing app. One GS (Google Sheet), and several linked Glide Tables (GT) between the apps.

You can have functionality split between the apps. In my case the user might start doing a test - setting columns in a row in a sheet… and then the agent app is waiting for a condition ‘ready for call = true’ to display something.

Things to watch out for:

  • computed columns are NOT shared between apps - only the basic columns
  • usc-columns are obviously just for the user on that side of the app (you can handle this between apps if you use buttons with ‘set column’ actions to copy data in and out of rows and tables)
  • each app can have separate User Profiles (and row owners different between the apps) — in mine I have CollectUser for the user app, Agents for the agent app, and SystemUsers for the Admin app
  • try to avoid using GS for anything that might require fast access - there is a lag between reading and updating GS data. I started with GS but moved to GT to resolve time lag issues (for my special app).

The auto-generated sheets from Glide are still there - App:Login / App:Comments, etc. It is not brilliant ---- it turns out that App:Logins is the same sheet for different apps… which means that, if you have a T&C doc they ‘signed’ you cannot tell automatically which person signed in which app (if you need this).

Personally, I love having the same sheet - and the shared Glide Tables. It makes some magical apps possible!

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That is some really interesting insight Mark, thanks so much!

With row owners acting different between the apps. Does that mean the content on one row-owned GS tab could be viewed by users in another app?

I.e.

Customer app User Profile tab is row-owned
Admin app could see all those rows if it’s not set to row-owned in this app

Again thanks for your insight!

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You can only use ‘admin’ as a role if you have a private pro app (which is a lot more expensive than public pro).

The issue with row owners is that you need to think through if the data can be seen by the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

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I wasn’t referring to the Admin roles by Glide, it was just an example name for the app.

Let’s say instead:
Student app
Teacher app
Parent app

If I wanted to make a row-owned tab inside the Student app, and let’s assume that’s configured and fit for purpose inside that app.

Can the Teacher and Parent app view these ‘Student app row-owned’ rows as normal, or would the ownership carry over?

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Yes, the other apps could see everything as row owners only applies in the specific table and app :slight_smile:

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Within the app, you need to think through how your row owners work in your User Profiles … and what info can be seen in other parts of the app. For instance in my app, I have DOB… but this is hidden by Row Owners. In order for me to use the data, I cannot do a lookup… because the result will not display for another user in the same app. If I need to use this data, I set columns to move the data in and out of shared spaces.

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