Use words to create slice filter expressions

[nkadonaga]

Over the past couple weeks, we have been rolling out the ability to use words to create slice filter expressions from opt-in testers to all users. As of April 21, 2021, we have rolled it out to 100% of users. Updates to the rollout status were posted to the Release Notes category.

Here’s a short demo of what you can do:

FAQ

Why add this feature?
Writing AppSheet expressions (also called formulas) is hard and time-consuming, especially for a no-code user. The goal of this feature is to make writing expressions easier by enabling users to describe them with words, instead of typing full AppSheet expressions. Less time crafting formulas means more time to add functionality to apps and use them.

How will this affect my existing user experience?
There should be minimal interruption in your current user experience. Creating a new expression will show suggested ones first, but if you find none of them relevant, you will be able to bypass the suggested formulas and use the Expression Assistant instead by clicking “Create a custom expression”, as shown below:

If I’m not interested, how do I opt-out?
For now, opt-out is not available for self-service and must be done manually, so to do that, you can send me a PM with your account ID. I will add a self-service option in due time. If you expressed an interest to opt-out in the testers request thread for this feature, you will continue to be opted out.

[Austin]

How long and how complex are these suggest formulas able to get? can I use ANDs and ORs in them? Like “Last 3 months and status is approved” or something like “email is xyz or email is abc or email is fgh”? We have a dev that can grammatically create conditions like this but can struggle righting them into formulas.

[nkadonaga]

Austin_Lambeth:

How long and how complex are these suggest formulas able to get? can I use ANDs and ORs in them?

Hi @Austin_Lambeth , we currently don’t support suggestions for multiple conditions, but we are tracking this feature request internally.

[takuya_miyai]

Testers wanted: Use words to create expressions

We create some suggestions as you describe for Enum columns, e.g., if [CountryEnum] had “Japan” as an Enum value, but I agree it would be helpful to do that for non-Enum columns as well.

Hi @natalie ,

Currently, in my environment, the Filter condition is recommended based on the data type.
I believe that AppSheet can access and suggest even the actual data, so I hope that such an extension will be made.

For example, in the following example, the Country column holds values such as Japan, France, China, and so on.
My expectation is that once you have entered up to “Country is”, the recommendation will be as follows

[country] is Japan
[country] is China
[country] is France

Thanks!