Using Google Sheets

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1

Is it a good idea to use a combination of Google Sheets and Glide Sheets? Thanks again.

2

yes

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3

It depends on your requirements.
Personally, I only attach a Google Sheet when I actually need one, which is pretty rare these days.
But everyone’s experience will be different. Again, as I said, it depends on your requirements.

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4

I think it depends if the data already exists, where it lives, what your budget is, what kind of technical stack you and your team are comfortable with.

  • If the data already exists in Google Sheets and needs to stay there, then you might as well leave it there.
  • If the data doesn’t already exist but you know it will make things much easier if it does live in Google Sheets because colleagues will want to work with Google Sheets, because you’ll be using Google App Scripts, because you will be using integrations that work beautifully well with Google Sheets, then you can leave it there.
  • If you think on the contrary you would prefer to leverage the power of Glide Tables and the integrated ecosystem of Glide (Glide AI and integrations), then you can create or move the data to Glide Tables.
  • Glide’s integrated ecosystem might come at a premium and using the built-in integrations might be more expensive than setting up integrations via 3rd party tools (such as Google Sheets).
  • More integrations via Google Sheets might lead to a more complex technical stack.

These comments apply to other data sources: Excel, Airtable, SQL.

As Darren said, it depends.

My preference at this stage in my development journey is to do as much as possible within Glide, mostly because I’m not comfortable with complexity. Given the choice, I prefer working within a single integrated product (Glide) rather than integrating various best-of-bread tools which could lead to a Frankenstein setup. I think it’s a question of preference.

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5

Thanks and I appreciate all of your comments. However, this leads me to my next question. And It is, how do I plan for the creation of the same system/app for multiple businesses? From how I understand it, I cannot use the same database for two different businesses. But the creation of the app could apply to more than one business, but the data is different.

I am thinking ahead in terms of creating an app for the Play Store and/or duplicating the same App for more than one business.

Thanks.

6

In theory you could create one app and have multiple business clients use that single app. You would need to use roles and use the company name as a role to clearly separate the data and make sure one company never sees the data of another company.

That would be the theory. In practice, you would probably hit usage limits quite rapidly. You would probably be better off creating separate apps for your business clients.

Your next question could be: “If have 25 paying business customers. I update one app. How can I efficiently update the other 24?”

Currently this is not possible. It has been requested though that we have the ability to create a “parent” app and “child” apps, where updating the parent app would automatically propagate the changes to the child apps.

Glide apps aren’t meant to be distributed via App Stores.

7

As I thought, the Play Store is out. But now my understanding is clearer in terms of what I can do with Glide. Separate clients is where I am leaning, but it appears the logic for each client would be to use the same data structure but the names of the sheets would be different. Is this correct?

Thanks

8

I can update data in multiple apps, which I do for my customers.

9

Separate databases (sheets, tables) and separate apps for each client. This is how I would do it.