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One of our favorite things to do is shine the spotlight on some of our most active Community members. One such member is Graham Howe (@graham_howe).
Read on to learn more about Graham, including why he contributes to the Community, example apps he's created, and several pieces of valuable advice for app creators.
Have additional questions for Graham? Add a comment on this post!
1. Where do you reside in the world?
I live in Ontario, Canada. Originally from the UK but moved to Canada in 2007 and have lived in Ontario since 2017.
2. What is your job and how does it tie into AppSheet?
I lead the Enterprise Architecture and Business Relationship Management team at Diversey, a multi-national cleaning solutions company. My teams are responsible for understanding business requirements and identifying the technologies which may enable them. We have been a Google company for more than 10 years and so AppSheet is a technology option we consider for our solutions.
3. What is your experience with the Community?
I joined the community in November 2021, shortly after starting to build an AppSheet application. I have found it a major source of expertise and knowledge-sharing, which has certainly accelerated my own developments. I've been hugely impressed with the willingness of so many members to contribute.
4. What do you get out of the Community? What compels you to contribute?
I have always been a problem solver and enjoy continuous learning where possible. Although I've never been really trained or employed as a developer, I have spent all of my career in the IT space and have a real passion for data design. I believe that AppSheet is primarily a data-driven architecture so if I can draw on my experience to help others get started in the right direction then I'm happy to do so.
5. How does the Community help you on a day-to-day basis?
I have not needed to ask many questions, but regularly search for answers in the knowledge base, as well as referring to the help documentation.
I also find that trying to answer questions from others is a great way for me to continue to develop my own knowledge.
6. What advice do you have for new Community members?
Read through the help documentation, search the community, and most importantly, try to build something first before asking questions.
It is far easier for someone to answer a technical question if the experts can see exactly what has already been attempted and what is not working.
7. How did you start using AppSheet and what did you use it for?
I built an application to manage the funnel and governance process for our Robotic Process Automation programme. We needed an easy way to have multiple users able to submit processes for automation consideration and then have a subset of users able to approve each project, as well as then managing the development cycle. The app is actually targeted for desktop browser use, but of course can be used on mobile devices if preferred.
8. Can you share your favorite thing you've created with AppSheet?
I am pleased with the Flexible user role management I included in my app (you can see it in this post in the tips and tricks section). It is part of an approach I build into my applications whereby as much as possible is left configurable through the app itself rather than having additional editors in AppSheet.
9. Are there any templates/app examples they'd like to share? Links to templates or images are helpful?
I did create a simple spreadsheet which allows me to test expression fragments without being constrained by the type of value being returned. I shared this in the following post: Spreadsheet to allow for AppSheet Expression testing.
10. What advice, or tips and tricks do you have for app creators using AppSheet?
Recognise that AppSheet really is data driven and to get the most out of it you should have a good understanding of your data model, including how different tables or entities relate to each other. It is actually quite amazing how much can be built automatically simply because the source tables have appropriate relationships between them.
Also download and explore some of the template apps - these are a great source of example data structures and code snippets.
11. What's a fun fact about you?
My hobby is woodworking and so I spend as much free time as I can in my workshop. I find it satisfies my desire to problem solve and develop my skills, but it is great to be literally hands on and to create something physical.
