AppsScriptPulse

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

The democratisation of app development with Duet AI for AppSheet

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From one simple prompt with Duet AI for AppSheet you are able to create a well structured application.

I recently had the pleasure of the opportunity to speak at DevFest Scotland. My topic was how you can use code with Google’s ‘no-code’ solution AppSheet. You can see some of the ways this is achievable in my shared slides. Whilst there are coding opportunities with AppSheet and having some coding/data schema knowledge is useful, I would argue that this is increasingly becoming less important.

In this post on the CTS Medium I share how Duet AI for AppSheet has hugely reduced the entry point for app creation. As part of this I share how a simple request to the Duet AI for AppSheet assistant of ‘an easy way for volunteers to borrow a laptop’ becomes the starting point for a well structured application. Having introduced AppSheet to a number of customers I can’t emphasise enough how big a step this is in the democratisation of app creation. Exciting times!

[Thanks to Christian Schalk and the AppSheet team for early access to Duet AI for AppSheet and providing input on the source post].

Source: The democratisation of app development with Duet AI for AppSheet

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 4 (Actions, Assistants and Automations)

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An intense 48-hour tour of AppSheet, Google’s flagship nocode tool, from the perspective of a newcomer to the platform (part 4/4).

The forth and final part in Pablo Felip’s AppSheet in 48 hours series 😟. I’m sure there will be more from Pablo on AppSheet, but the rumour is he’ll be next publishing some Apps Script posts.

For the final part Pablo discusses the different types of actions available in AppSheet, including system actions and user-defined actions, and how to use them to create custom functionality in apps. There is a lot you can do with actions from writing data, navigation and more.

Something else touched upon in Pablo’s post is the intelligent assistant available throughout AppSheet. Using the assistant to help you create actions can also save you a lot of time, particular with toggling actions for yes/no checkboxes. If you can find the good way to describe what you want the assistant can handle creating the action, related icons and behaviour to toggle the appearance of one of the actions.

Follow the source link to find out more…

Source: Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 4

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 3 – (Slice, dice, filtered and viewed)

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An intense 48-hour tour of AppSheet, Google’s flagship nocode tool, from the perspective of a newcomer to the platform (part 3/4).

It’s the third part of Pablo Felip’s AppSheet in 48 hours series. Christian Schalk has already post an announcement in the AppsSheet community which gives a great summary of this latest episode:

Here are some of key view centric topics covered:

  • A thorough introduction to Views, including their position (Primary, Menu, Reference), as well as user defined vs. and auto-generated. There’s also coverage on the new visual editing feature introduced in August!
  • Building custom views based on data slices, including coverage on performance implications between security filters and data slices.
  • As well as coverage on conditional formatting, including making view-aware expressions with the CONTEXT function.
  • And more!

The post is packed with lots of great tips, highlighting some of the key features and approaches for designing your AppSheet app.

Source: Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 3

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 2 (Formula and Expressions)

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An intense 48-hour tour of AppSheet, Google’s flagship nocode tool, from the perspective of a newcomer to the platform (part 2/4).

The second part in Pablo Felip’s in ‘Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours’ series. This post focuses on the AppSheet formula language which are similar to formula/functions you would use in spreadsheets. As highlighted in Pablo’s post ‘expressions’ can be used in numerous places in AppSheet not only to calculate new values but also control your AppSheet app behaviour and functionality.

An area I often struggle with is handling data lists. Pablo’s post walk you through from basic list operations to more complex list filtering and list operations such as combining and subtracting data. This and more is covered in the posted linked to below:

Source: Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 2

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 1 (Data)

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An intense 48-hour tour of AppSheet, Google’s flagship nocode tool, from the perspective of a newcomer to the platform (part 1/4).

When introducing people to AppSheet I like to remind them that whilst it is a no/low code solution, like many other products it still requires you factor in time to learn and understand the product. Spreadsheets are a great example of this there being aspects that are relatively intuitive but other areas like formulas where it requires time to understand how to best use them.

I find learning vicariously, through the eyes of others, helps me understand what other people value in a product. This first post in a series by Pablo Felip in ‘Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours’ is a great example of just that. There are three more parts to come, but in part 1 Pablo sets the scene sharing initial impressions and first learning from a weekend in AppSheet.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly data features heavily in this first post. What you want your app to do will often be based on the data you already have or the data you will need. The post also contains this useful reminder:

Google AppSheet is a “core” service of Google Workspace. It is therefore covered by the same legal umbrella as the other core services of this platform with respect to terms of use, security and privacy of the data processed.

Pablo’s next part should be published next week and hopfeully like me you’ll be following along.

Source: Discovering Google AppSheet in 48 hours | Part 1

Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

How AppSheet can help with the security in the education industry (and how Duet AI for AppSheet can help)

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AppSheet is one one more tool 🛠 for citizen developers and IT departments that helps automate concrete processes through a mobile-friendly and desktop UI’s.

In this post I’ll show you some AppSheet use-cases in the education industry, specifically how you can improve your school security using a simple app to keep the visits’s record and another app to automate and speed up the kids pick up.

In this post from Mozart García you can find out about some use cases for improving school security using AppSheet. The post includes an overview of apps for recording visits and pickups. You can find similar apps in the AppSheet template gallery (Visitor Check-ins and Curbside Pickup), but with Duet AI for AppSheet there will soon be the opportunity to build you apps with an GenAI assistant. Below is a quick example based on one of Mozart’s app descriptions:

Duet AI in AppSheet is currently only available to Google Workspace customers. Google are rolling it out to a small group of customers at first, and then we will make it available to everyone who is eligible. You can read more about Create apps in AppSheet using Duet AI assistance

 

Source: How Appsheet can help with the security in the education industry

Official News, AppSheet, No Code

Become a recognized AppSheet Google Developer Expert (GDE)!

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Image credit: Google

If you have strong AppSheet technical skills along with solid Google Workspace skills and would like to share your expertise globally as a recognized “Google Developer Expert” (GDE), we would like to invite you to apply to become an official GDE member specializing in AppSheet and Workspace!

The Google Developer Experts program is a great way to get recognised for your abilities, but more importantly an opportunity to get close to the Google product teams to learn and share your day-to-day experiences. Whilst AppSheet is positioned as a no/low code solution it doesn’t mean there aren’t individuals out their developing sophisticated apps and supporting the community along the way.

If this sounds like you the AppSheet team are looking for community experts to become the next AppSheet GDEs. This source post includes some more information as well as a form where you can note your interested. As a GDE of 9+ years I’m also happy to share my experience of the program and what I think it takes to stand out from the crowd.

Source: Become a recognized AppSheet Google Developer Expert (GDE)!

Official News, Solutions, AppSheet, No Code

Google AppSheet rolling out new visual editing features

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We are excited to roll out to GA (General Availability) our first visual editing features to all AppSheet creators, starting today.

This a new way for AppSheet creators to make changes to their apps and navigate the editor. It’s intuitive for anyone to point at what they want to change if they can see it. We are now letting you do that in the editor: you can now hover on visual components of the editor’s app view and see possible editor actions for the outlined component.

Google recently announced the rollout of new new visual editing features in AppSheet. The new feature should help simplify and speed up app development (see the source post for an animated gif / video of what it looks like). In the announcement Google mention that the new feature isn’t available for all components:

Outlines are only available for some components visible in the app. For instance, Detail and Form Views have a lot more controls than the Deck View right now. Additionally, only some Editor actions are available, such as navigating users to Data components, View components, Action components and some of the general Settings.

More updates are planned and if you don’t see this feature in AppSheet yet the rollout has been paused for Google Cloud Next and should be available for everyone soon.

Source: First visual editing in the AppSheet editor

Comment, Official News, AppSheet, No Code

AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting

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To bring the power of AppSheet to more users, AppSheet Core licenses will now be included for the following Google Workspace editions…

By including AppSheet Core licenses in more Google Workspace editions, the power of AppSheet is accessible to more users. Further, Admins will have the security features they need to ensure their users are using AppSheet appropriately in their organization.

Previously AppSheet Core licenses were included with Workspace Enterprise Plus, Enterprise Essentials Plus, and Education Plus users. Google have recently announced that AppSheet Core licenses will also be included in the following Google Workspace editions:

  • Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
  • Enterprise Starter and Standard
  • Frontline Starter and Standard
  • Non-profits
  • Education Standard

This is great news for Google Workspace users as AppSheet includes a number of out-of-the box features which already integrate into other Workspace products, like dynamic emails, Google Chat and Google Apps Script integration.

Along with the expansion of Workspace editions getting AppSheet Core, is the news that Admins will have basic security controls which can disable external usage of AppSheet apps.

Looking at the associated new security settings support page, it was interesting to see that turning on AppSheet Core security will disable ‘external integration through the app API’:

This caught my eye as the AppSheet API is a feature reported as only being supported on AppSheet Enterprise plans:

Perhaps it’s a mistake in the AppSheet API documentation, but I hope not as the AppSheet API is an incredibly useful addition for developers to do more with AppSheet.

Finally a little plug. If you are interested in AppSheet and would like to find out about training and support services get in touch. At CTS, where I work, we’ve a growing reputation in both products built using AppSheet as well as helping you get the most from the platform in your organisation.

Source: AppSheet Core licenses will be included by default for more Google Workspace editions, along with a new Admin security setting

Library, Solutions, AI, Advanced, No Code

Introducing ChatGPTApp, a new library for Google Apps Script and ChatGPT (and a new way to generate personalised mail merges)

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Last month, OpenAI announced Function calling, “a new way to more reliably connect GPT’s capabilities with external tools and APIs”. Super useful ❤️ and we decided to integrate that with Google Apps Script.

Following on from yesterday’s Pulse post which highlighted Ben Collins reflections on ‘What can AI do for you as a Google Sheets user? Is the hype justified?’, here is a contribution from another Apps Script expert, Romain Vialard, announcing a ChatGPT library for Google Apps Script.

The source post highlights a number of examples, including the standard ‘prompt’ calling. Where this post gets very interesting is integration with Open AI’s function calling features:

In an API call, you can describe functions to gpt-3.5-turbo-0613 and gpt-4-0613, and have the model intelligently choose to output a JSON object containing arguments to call those functions. The Chat Completions API does not call the function; instead, the model generates JSON that you can use to call the function in your code.

To illustrate this below is a screenshot of a very slightly extended example, which has a Google Sheet with the headings email, name and tip topic. The functions are described to ChatGPT and in the case of sendMessage() the parameters it requires. The ChatGPTApp library handles the functions and in the case of the getContactsList() uses it to pass the Google Sheet data for ChatGPT to format a JSON response to correctly call the sendMessage() function.

I found it took me a while to start understanding what is going on and would recommend experimenting with the library and sample code to get a sense what is possible.

Source: Introducing ChatGPTApp, a new library for Google Apps Script