Welcome to the AppSheet Community!

[Lauren_vdv]

Welcome to the AppSheet Community! We’re thrilled you’ve decided to explore our flourishing group of app creators who are here to find answers, share knowledge, and connect with each other.

Whether you’re brand new to AppSheet or already an expert, it’s our goal to provide a trusted space for you to achieve your goals alongside a global community of supportive and knowledgeable peers, industry experts, and AppSheet team members.

In this post, we’ll cover the key features of the AppSheet Community, how it’s organized, and how you can get the most value from it.

• Key features
• AppSheet Q&A
• Release Notes & Announcements
• Events
• Community Resources
• How to get the most out of the AppSheet Community
• Start with search
• Subscribe to stay up-to-date
• Don't go it alone
• Provide feedback
• Share your experience

Key features

There are a few key features of the AppSheet Community, with each feature offering different benefits and engagement opportunities:

AppSheet Q&A

AppSheet Q&A is an open discussion forum where you can ask or answer any questions about creating an app or using the AppSheet platform. All members of the Community can participate in these discussions, and you have the ability to “like” posts and comments, as well as accept a response to your post as a solution, as shown in the example in the screenshot image below.When you’re drafting a new post, existing content recommendations are shown to help prevent duplicate posts. You can also use advanced search filters to find posts by a range of modifiers, including labels, keywords, content type, author, date, or if they have an Accepted Solution or not. More on how Accepted Solutions work can be seen in this blog here.

Feature Ideas

This is where all members of the Community can provide feature requests and ideas to help make AppSheet even better.

We’ve recently rolled out a revamped, formalized process for how feature requests are curated, reviewed, implemented, and communicated with Community members, including a status that indicates where a feature idea stands in the process.Each user can add only one vote (“like”) per idea, but there is no limit to the number of ideas a user can vote for.

Tips & Resources

Tips & Resources is where you can find tips and tricks, top resources, and educational content to help you create successful apps with AppSheet. This section includes a few areas:

• Tips & Tricks: this is an open discussion forum for all Community members where you can find and share knowledge about building apps with AppSheet. We encourage you to share “likes” to show your appreciation for tips other members share. Here, you can also post interesting updates that the Community may find useful, such as an event, article, or video.
• Education: this page contains a library of expert-curated, educational resources on using AppSheet. Managed by the AppSheet team, the content you’ll find here includes learning resources, tutorial videos, and case studies at any stage of your app creator journey, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve already built a number of apps.
• Partners & Resellers: this area is only available to verified service providers or resellers of AppSheet under NDA, where you can access exclusive training resources, announcements, and content.

Release Notes & Announcements

In this section of the Community, you can access AppSheet Feature Release Notes and see the latest announcements, including platform updates and Community news.

To stay up-to-date, subscribe to receive notifications and/or email updates. You can receive notifications by subscribing to all release notes and announcements, or you can narrow it down by subscribing to only specific product areas using labels. More on managing notifications and subscriptions can be seen here.

Events

This area is dedicated to all AppSheet events, including a revamped series of Office Hours with AppSheet experts, as well as meetups to showcase app creators and their apps. Subscribe to Events to know what’s coming up next and to see sessions available on-demand.

Community Resources

Here, you can access helpful articles on topics like managing your account, contributing to the Community, and updating notifications.

There’s also a dedicated Community Feedback forum where you can ask questions and provide feedback about your experience in the AppSheet Community. We appreciate any thoughts you may have so we can continue to improve your experience and help you achieve your goals with AppSheet.

How to get the most out of the AppSheet Community

The AppSheet Community is first and foremost your Community, so to help make sure you're getting the most out of it as possible, here are a few recommendations on how to consume and engage with the content and opportunities available to you:

Start with search

A key feature of the AppSheet Community that will help you quickly find what you're looking for is search. Before you start a new post, see if someone has already answered your question using the search bar, located in the top right corner of your window next to your avatar. You can leverage advanced search filters to find posts by labels, keywords, content type, author, date, or if they have an Accepted Solution or not.

Subscribe to stay up-to-date

By personalizing your subscriptions and notifications, you can make sure you always know when there’s an update or new activity on a topic or discussion you care about, such as Release Notes, Announcements, or Events.

You can also manage how often you're notified with updates and if you'd like to receive emails. Learn more in this article here. 

Don't go it alone

If you're unsure, confused, or unable to find what you're looking for, don't hesitate to ask a question in the Q&A forum, or join one of our Office Hour events. The global Community of AppSheet team members, peers, and product experts are willing and able to help you.

Provide feedback

A cross-functional team of experts at AppSheet refine the AppSheet product and your Community experience largely based on community knowledge and insights. Help shape the future of AppSheet by providing your feedback. This can be in the form of posts and votes in AppSheet Feature Ideas, the Community Feedback forum, or conversations during our events. We take your feedback seriously and deeply value what you have to say!

Share your experience

Are you an AppSheet creator? We'd love to feature your success stories, best practices, or lessons learned with the Community. No app is too “big” or too “small.” Leave a comment on this post or share your story in Tips & Tricks for an opportunity to be featured in one of our member spotlights. And if you’re not yet an AppSheet customer, please reach out to us here and someone from our team will be in touch!

As a final note, thank you to all the AppSheet users who have helped shape the AppSheet Community. We hope you will find it valuable and helpful for you as you continue to build, create, and innovate with AppSheet.

See you in the Community!

The Google Cloud Community Team

[AndrewB]

Thanks for sharing the video. I will add this to the enhancements list. For now, if you go to the notifications page, the link will bring you to the comment that triggered the notification. 

 

[Skip2MiLu]

I was trying to find the original post where the community moved to google new platform vs where it was before. I do not think it is this one, but my comment below might give reference to why I am struggling to find it. 

Firstly, I mean no disrespect via the below post and hope that it is interpreted as an opportunity to improve vs one that just about criticism. 

I understand the need for appsheet to move to google community communication platform vs what it was using before Google took over.

However, this is major step back!

I find myself participating in the community less frequently and more out of desperation these days. 

I am really struggling with the UI.

I find it difficult to understand where exactly I am in thread never mind where my post was. It is not very user friendly and often quite confusing. 

It is almost unusable on mobile. 

I not sure if appsheet / google has ever conducted unbiased 3rd party studies on the effectiveness of the communication UI /structure, but I would struggle to believe the results would not be anything but concerning. 

I have had exposure of a lot of different support communication platforms before I even started using Appsheet and it original platform.

I seemed to manage well from the start on both desktop and mobile, with a short learning curve.

Maybe it just me, but what we have now is not working and I not sure if Google is realising how important it is that works well.

A product is only as good as how it communicated and supported.

Appsheet is revolutionary product of which Google has realised this quickly (good move on finding talent).

We need to seriously invest in bringing communication on all it product to the same level.

We also need to have the courage to put our short term “pride” and brand aside and realise when we are strong and where we might be weak.

Outsource communication structure if you do not have a history of not doing communication well (i.e. Google+).
Or the very least sort out your own platform before moving to ineffective system.

We really have the opportunity to do this well and build something great. I think a bit more thought on this might be required.

[Skip2MiLu]

I really hoping I am communicating the high importance of my above post to the management team of Appsheet effectively and just thought to add some additional thought that might end up being more about "business philosophy" that anything else for those that enjoy, interested and value more long term thinking.

To summarise, this platform is currently the main way for appsheet to communicate with it consumers.

A support platform is more crucial than a marketing platform. Simply because of the product model that appsheet has set to target all consumers and because of this appsheet will already sell itself. I think there is also no lack of interest in this stage and probably more about trying to support everyone.

To elaborate, appsheet has decided to target all consumer with it “low code” i.e. “do you it yourself model”.
The biggest asset to the model is …..well…. “a product that targets all consumers. Advanced developers and Beginners”.
The biggest headache to this model is….well….“a product that targets all consumers”.

I pretty sure that appsheet has realised this and probably trying to figure out the balance between support all customers and short term profit.

Short term profit = target enterprises that know more what they are doing…therefore less support required and have scale and money.

I consider this short term because the “flood gates are already open”. Technology is becoming more an more accessible, not investing in a structure that embraces and invests in this is the equivalent of “swimming upstream”.

Eventually there is going be more “appsheets” out there.

Appsheet has the benefit of being one of the 1st pioneers in this segment, and being one of the 1st helps but does not define success as others might be able to learn from appsheet weakness and to obtain a “jump start” if they not “too late to the party” as it always easier building a new structure built from the ground up to scale with context on how it can and should be done vs modify existing platform to scale.  

So with the above established. Appsheet needs to seriously invest NOW already in creating a very robust support communication platform before frustration sets in a growing landscape of more “low code” platforms being available.  

I not sure if Appsheet is realising this, but a strong support communication structure / platform in relations to where app development is going in the future could be a “bigger product” than the Appsheet platform in itself.
i.e. create a ecosystem of products that support each other with help “cement” these products.

However another realisations is that Appsheet has “no way” of being able to support the level of consumers they are targeting internally alone.
i.e. there has to be community platform of developers support each other.

However this community platform seems to be viewed as an “after thought” an not potentially the most import “products” for Appsheet to put on high importance to invest in.

It very interesting to note that the some of top competing companies are all companies where  “communication”. Beware Apple ….”hardware will be obsolete very soon”! 😉

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Google (Search, Youtube), Twitter, Tik Tok

It also interesting to note that the only real thing that differentiate them is how choose to “format and structure” communication.

The format even differentiates the consumers they attract. Eg: Facebook = Older generation that do not like change. Tik Tok the younger lazier / less educated consumers that are influenced by maximum communication impact and in the shortest time possible (short video). Twitter = the people that “want to be heard” and make short statements or announcements with little “follow through”.
And Google that is able to search and “find all of them” and still the most balanced communication type that want to invest my time in using “Youtube”….well done Google.

What is also important to realise is the difference between a “Great” and “Good” company is realising what are their strengths and weakness and realising that it just not possible to be “Great” if they do not focus on their strengths and put their short term pride and brand aside to choose “partner” vs doing everything themselves and wasting time an resource.

Microsoft has started to realise this.
The best way to “win and remove threats” is to simply “remove the need for competition in the 1st place”, by simply “partnering” with other strong companies.

Sorry to mention this but Google, but Google+ was function of investing in a communication project that did not align with their strengths.

However, “Great” companies are defined by how they manage their failures and not their success. So Google+ was great opportunity to learn what not to do.

My advice and summarh to the Appsheet / Google board of directors is:

1. Appsheet has the potential has being the most import acquisition Google has made in while.
   
   
2. Realise who you long term customer to invest in.
   -It is not enterprise! They might provide large returns in short term with less support required, but they are also 1st to jump to higher value systems and they probably need to community less
   -Retain the  “All / Every Consumers Type” target model if you want to be "Great".
   -This means that the developers on community platform are your most important consumer to invest in for the long term.
   -Support them on how to make money developing apps and they themselves will bring in more consumer.
   
   
3. Eventually all players in this market will realise that they need to target all consumers and use Appsheet as a means to learn and evolve from.
   -Appsheet need to invest in ecosystem that manage scale and better “cement” appsheet in the future.
   -Very difficult to “budge” a well-established ecosystem / community / culture.
4. Invest in establishing a community support structure with effective communication etc tools they need to grow.
   
   
5. I well-established ecosystem or a community will take time to establish
   
   
6. Review ones own and weaknesses and consider partnering with other possible stakeholder with valuable complementing strengths. Eg: Effective communication platform is going to be the “back bone” of robust support and developer community.
   
   
7. Consider monetizing support. Maybe consider a MrExcel structure. Free to use, offer to bid for more support is needed. This will help

[Roderick]

Hey there @Skip2MiLu I definitely appreciate your feedback about the AppSheet Community and your support experience with AppSheet. We are absolutely listening. I'm going to shoot you a PM to get more details and see if I can help get you back on track! 

[Skip2MiLu]

Sent you a PM back, but I think it important to have open discussion with community. 

Will share a few examples as I go long. 

Here is the 1st feedback. 

[Skip2MiLu]

Here is another example. Hope this helping.

[Skip2MiLu]

Here is another. I frequently get different error message like this. I not used to getting any errors on any communication platform I have used. Not a normal experience.

If users hit frequent "stumbling box" like this they will end up not participating in the community. We really do not want this.
Invest in making "participating" easier.

[Skip2MiLu]

I would honestly recommend you hire a few interns every few months and all they do is develop apps, and participate in the community and fill in polls that substantiate the experience with good data that you can learn from. 

Developers need to use the products they design to sell. 

UI is everything!
The story of IBM and Microsoft Windows is true testament to the importance on focusing on UI and customer experience 1st.
The backend and everything else is created around it to support the UI. 

UI 1st....... features, more functions, logic, automation, backend, even speed and efficiency needs to happen after a big invest is made in UI.

Had issue just replying to this message.

[Rifad]

---

@Skip2MiLu wrote:

I am really struggling with the UI.

I find it difficult to understand where exactly I am in thread never mind where my post was. It is not very user friendly and often quite confusing. 

---

Yes, that is very true. There are probably even appsheet employees who are finding it difficult to navigate long posts, and many times they are not even aware they exist. Most of the time, we get replies in this community if we mention a specific person who has already been in the conversation since the beginning. My situation is that I am looking for my own post in the announcement for the new desktop UI and I got frustrated and came back to here to describe it. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to find a relevant topic using the search. The discousure was much better.

[Roderick]

These screen grabs and the context are very helpful! I will share them with our platform team to incorporate into the on going improvements they are making to the UI/UX of the Community. If you have other ideas or pain-points feel free to share them in the Community Feedback area to ensure our developers see this type of feedback.