My First Online Training: Developing Robust Applications with Google AppSheet

Recently, I got the chance of giving a training on Google AppSheet at O’Reilly Media, Inc. Check out the course by clicking here. This was a three hour long training where I talked about the basics of Google AppSheet and how to create apps on Google AppSheet. The training had the following outline.

Course overview(30 mins)

• What is Google AppSheet and why use it?
• AppSheet features
• Six steps to creating powerful apps

The course overview was mainly to cover the following point:

• Introduction to Google AppSheet
• Basics of Google AppSheet
• Answering some important questions like what is Google AppSheet, why use Google AppSheet
• Features that Google AppSheet has that makes it stand out among the other no-code app development platforms.
• What goes into the making of an app on Google AppSheet

After talking about the features of Google AppSheet, I talked about six steps to create apps in Google AppSheet. These six steps are my personal steps that I follow while creating apps in Google AppSheet.

Screenshot from the presentation

After the course overview, we move on to the app walk-through. In the app walk-through, we go through all the features of Google AppSheet through two demo apps that I have already created. For the training I had created two demo apps, Expense Tracking App and Vehicle Inspection App.

Apps walk-through (35 minutes)

• Expense tracking app using Google AppSheet
• Vehicle inspection app using Google AppSheet

Each apps had features that were worth talking about, and gave the users a better understanding of how apps work in Google AppSheet and what are the some additional features that Google AppSheet has such as Automation, Behaviour,Intelligence.

If you want to learn more about the Expense Tracking App and the Vehicle Inspection App, check out the links below.

(1) Expense Tracking App

Create a Simple Expense Tracking App Using Google AppSheet Part1

Create a Simple Expense Tracking App Using Google AppSheet — Part 2

(2) Vehicle Inspection App

Create a Vehicle Service App Using Google AppSheet Part — 1

Create a Vehicle Service App Using Google AppSheet Part — 2

After the App walkthrough it was time for the demo where I show the users how to create apps from scratch, how to convert a simple Google Sheet to a powerful app.

Creating a to-do list app (30 minutes)

• Demo and hands-on exercises:Data source declaration; app setup; setting up data tables; creating app views; setting up slices; sharing with users; deploying app

The first app that I created from scratch was a To-Do List. This app can be used to add and track activities that you need to get done. You can add, edit, delete activities in the app.

In this app we have used slices that filter that data according to the status of the task. It creates a different view where all the activities that need to be completed are stored.

After you complete a particular task in the app, an email will be sent to you with details of the app using the Automation feature of Google AppSheet.

If you want to know more about the working of the To-Do list app and how it is made, check out the two blogs below.

Create a To-Do list App using Google AppSheet — Part 1

Create a To-Do List App using Google AppSheet — Part2

After making the To-Do list, we move on to the Inventory Management App.In this we convert a normal Google Sheet containing Inventory, sales and restock of the store.

Creating an inventory management app (35 minutes)

• Demo and hands-on exercises: Data source declaration; app setup; setting up data tables; creating app views; setting up formulas; sharing with users; deploying app

In this app we used various formulas to calculate the current real-time inventory of the products in the store. We use virtual columns and slices to filter products that need to be restocked.

We also used some formulas to log in sales made in the app. These formulas will subtract the amount of sale from the current inventory in the app.

If you want to know more about the working of the inventory management app, check out the links below.

Create an Inventory Management App Using Google AppSheet Part — 1

Create an Inventory Management App Using Google AppSheet Part — 2

After the two app demos it was time to talk about Google Apps Script. In this part of the session I talked about about Google Apps Script and how you can combine it with Google AppSheet.

AppsScript + AppSheet (30 minutes)

• Presentation and hands-on exercise: Use AppScript and AppSheet together
• Demo and hands-on exercise: Automation with AppScript

Inside the Inventory Management App, I wanted to send out emails as soon as a new product is added to the inventory. To do this I used Google Apps Script. I wrote some script that accepts parameters from the app and then sends an email to the app owner.

I will be publishing a detailed article on how use Google AppScript and Google AppSheet soon.

Outro (20 minutes)

• Presentation: Additional resources on Google AppSheet
• Q&A

This brings us to the end of the session. I gave a summary of Google AppSheet and talked about some additional resources from where they can learn more about Google AppSheet and Google AppScript. If you are interested in checking out the additional resources document, click here.

In preparation for the training, I designed my presentation on Google Slides. Google Slides also has an option for speaker notes which was very useful during the training. I tried to keep my slides very simple and clean, tried my best to reduce text on the slides in order to keep the listener engaged in what I am speaking instead of reading the slides.

If you want to check out the training it is available on O’Reilly Media.

Developing Robust Applications with Google AppSheet

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any issues/feedback at aryanirani123@gmail.com