Why use AppSheet Chat apps?

[cschalk_ws]

Building Workspace Chat apps has up until now been a task that only seasoned developers could perform because it required expertise in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and at least one other technology including Cloud Functions, Cloud Pub/Sub, and/or Apps Script.

With AppSheet’s introduction of its new Chat apps feature, AppSheet creators, who are not traditional technical developers, can now easily build and publish Chat apps based on their AppSheet apps with minimal effort, and most importantly no code.

Why you should add Chat to your AppSheet apps

Before diving into different Chat app use cases, it’s helpful to understand the reasons why you should consider adding Chat functionality to your AppSheet applications.

• User Convenience - Lets your app engage users where they are
  • Adding Chat to your applications provides an additional interface into your app’s data and functionality in a streamlined Chat form factor, which complements the existing Mobile & Desktop interfaces already provided by AppSheet.
    
• Streamlined App Interface - Brings a focused user experience for key use cases 
  • Since chat is inherently a minimal but focused interface, it is optimal for key use cases such as updating inventory, submitting/approving requests, searching FAQs etc, all without often unneeded additional user interface clutter.
    
         ‘My Simple Inventory’ app deployed as a Chat app
    
    
  • AppSheet Chat apps can be especially useful when customized with Slash commands, which allow users to invoke specific app actions or components, via simple text commands that appear in a dropdown in the chat interface after entering a slash character ‘/’.
    
     
     Triggering a Slash Command with ‘/’ 
    
    
• Enhanced App Engagement - Can serve more users overall
  As a direct by-product of a streamlined interface, where an app is just a chat away, an additional chat interface enhances overall app access and will allow more users to engage with the app compared to just offering the traditional Mobile/Desktop (Web) apps interface experience.
  
  
• Leverage AppSheet Automations - Chat can be integrated into Automations and chat messages can be broadcast to all users in a chat space 
  Once chat is enabled in an AppSheet app, it can be configured within an AppSheet Automation and send messages to a Google Chat Space. This is especially powerful in that neither the automation, nor the Chat app require any code to build in AppSheet.
  
  In the automation below, a chat message will be sent to the chat space “AppSheet Test Space” whenever there is a data change.
  

This should hopefully give you some ideas on why you should enable chat on your apps. Now let’s take a look at some of the real-life use cases that inspired us to build this feature in the first place to help you brainstorm on your new AppSheet Chat app creations!

Popular Chat app use cases

Here are a few popular chat use cases to consider when implementing your own AppSheet Chat apps.

• 24/7 Customer Service/Support  - An AppSheet app with columns such as [Problem, Date, Description, Support Agent, Customer] could be chat enabled and shared with a customer support chat space where the app could trigger a message to the space whenever a new support ticket is added. The same automation could also send an email to an appropriate email group notifying them of the new support ticket.
  
  
  
• FAQs/Knowledge base - This use case can serve as a searchable knowledge base or FAQ where users can search for key terms. An AppSheet app could have a single FAQ table and a default app could easily be generated where the built-in NLP enabled ‘/search’ slash command could handle the incoming queries.
  
  
• Corporate services - Chat apps can provide customized services for corporate audiences, such as looking up vacation days based on an employee’s region, or quickly check on retirement benefits based on the employee’s region or demographics.
          
  
• Surveys -  Chat apps can be used as a vehicle for quick, customized spot surveys.  This is probably the easiest use case to construct in AppSheet as it will automatically generate your survey form and then all you have to do is chat enable your app.
  

• Business Workflows - Chat apps can play a key role in numerous business workflows that complement a variety of internal business processes.
  

   Here are some examples:

  • Submitting IT Support or Help Desk tickets - An AppSheet app could be integrated with an external ticketing system via a Webhook or even through one of its supported data source connectors. Then an Automation could be created that is triggered when a new record is created to call the external service. To trigger an automation, a new record could be created in the Chat app generated for the AppSheet app. The types of tickets could range from technical support, to human resources tickets, or really any ticketing system.
    
    
  • Marketing review or materials requests - In a similar fashion, any marketing materials requests, such as slides review or creation, branding images, or even approved marketing text could be requested via a simple request system that is streamlined with a chat interface. For example, an employee could invoke a marketing request in chat to review and clean up a new presentation. A simple chat interface could accept arguments such as the document URL, desired date of completion along with a description and then pass it onto the Marketing team for processing.
    
    
  • Document review workflows - A custom document approval system could be created with an AppSheet app with tables for documents location and related approvers. The document review record could have columns for document URL, and a dropdown to select the approving person or department.
    Again a chat interface added to this example app would also streamline the usability with a simplified interface.
    
    
  • Sales Materials Assistance - An app designed to offer Sales Materials assistance on a product materials could be created where the input could be a selected product or feature from a dropdown and any other request details such as material type [Pitch Deck, FAQ Document, “1-pager”, Video link…], Creation date range and so on. As the new request record is added via chat (or standard Mobile/Desktop interface) a custom email could be sent via an automation to the requestor with a specific set of chosen links to documents.
    
    
  • Streamlined Bug reporting or lookup - Similar to other ticket systems that could be streamlined via a chat interface, a bug database could also be created where users could provide bug details in the new record. The app could even query a bug database to check if similar bugs are already logged and respond back with a list of similar bugs. If none of these match the users bug request, a new bug could be submitted via the same chat interface.
    
    
  • And many more…
    

As you can see, there are multiple use cases where a chat interface could provide great value by streamlining the overall process of interacting with a variety of services.

Getting Started

Here are a few things to consider when building a Chat app application with AppSheet.

• Consult the Chat apps help documentation first to understand the mechanics of enabling chat for an existing AppSheet app. You’ll also want to understand the general concepts of building Workspace Chat apps as well, but with the understanding that with AppSheet Chat apps, 99% of the work is done for you!.
• Before building an entirely new app from scratch, consider taking any existing app that already provides a service that could be improved with a streamlined chat interface. Then simply generate and customize the new Chat app in AppSheet.
• If starting a new app, it’s helpful to first build a standard Mobile/Desktop interface to the app and thoroughly test the app’s integrations before generating a chat interface.
• Take advantage of Appsheet’s incredibly agile development approach and iterate often on your new chat apps!

And most of all, have fun exploring all the new chat possibilities with your AppSheet apps!

[Marc_Dillon]

I feel like this is missing a section: "What is a Chat app?"

[cschalk_ws]

That's why I included the link to Chat Apps in the first sentence. 😉

[Koichi_Tsuji]

@cschalk_ws 

You guys better to do "real-world/real-life" demonstaration if you really wish to push this new features to the usres to use on our apps.

I m still puzzled what is going to be "real-life" use cases will be.

Static document is not really appealing anything sometime (most of the time) nowadays.  As the ex.AppSheet team before Google time did, better to host the webinar to demonstrate the new feature to appeal more.  I m sure 99% of the community member who read your post will be puzzled and not able to grab the real context of your post.

I tested the new features few time for the last couple of months, I observed unknown bugs (even a day before). What we could do is to close our eyes, and ban the new features, as we do so on the other new AppSheet new features to avoid any disruptions amongs the users.

We know new appsheet feature is bring us the new headache rather than benefit as the existing app or new app are surely broken. And the features are not working as they are documented. I know you have opposite side of opinion, but you wish to prove what you are saying is the benefit to the users, you better to demonstarte it with the real-life demonstration.

If this new features are going to help the end users, I wish to see how the Google is using "internally " Google office, such as addressing the IT ticket, FAQ questions etc, internally in Google offices.

Anyone who are not using the tool daily in the office, they are not clarified to push to the others, that is nature for anything.

We need a demonstrations what and how Google is using your own platform to be pursuasive.

In the meantime, I asked my clients locally here to ban the this new features through the Policy if they wish to avoid any distruptions. Most of them understood what I mean and they did or will do so.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

This is my own private opinion. 

In terms of the integration between Google chat and AppSheet, we really don t "necessarily" needs such a rich "but i will never use" features.

Majority of the appsheet users need more simple integration, such as "sending the message from AppSheet app to the target usres by email address (as far as the recipient is Google Workspace users). Currently webhook and new features are only able to send messages to SPACES alone. 

What I hear from the many of the users from my own community, they wish to send private massage through the Google chat, rather than sending message only SPACES.

Not sure such a large voice is reaching out to the Google team though.

[Rachelgmoore]

Hi Koichi,
I want to acknowledge the larger concerns about use cases surfaced in your replies, but as the product manager for Chat Apps I specially wanted to follow up here on a couple product-related comments.

---

Majority of the appsheet users need more simple integration ... they wish to send private massage through the Google chat, rather than sending message only SPACES.

---

Understood, and agreed! Once a Chat app has been published, it can be added to either a space or a private message. From the "Find apps" page in chat, a user can:

• Click Add to space to add the Chat app to a space, enter the space name, and click Add.
• Click Chat to start a direct message (DM). Type hello (or any string not starting with /) to display the Chat app interface.

This will control whether the app is added to a space or a private message. (Full documentation here.)

If the concern is about whether a Chat app automatically sends responses to a space or a DM, that can also be configured and is done so when building the "send a chat message" task. In the "Message content" section, there is a drop-down to select whether a chat message should be sent to a particular space (which includes DMs), or should respond to the same thread in which it was invoked. Note: If you select Respond to same thread:

• For the parent process, don't set linking on. The originating Chat space thread can't be identified when the process is used by multiple bots. See Reuse automation components. 
• The parent event must be a Chat event. See Configure Chat events.
  (Full documentation here.)

That said, I think you do make a great point that the terminology used in AppSheet and help docs. The dropdown in Automation that says "Select chat spaces" is misleading because it actually includes both capital-S Spaces (e.g. the actual Google chat feature) and lowercase-s spaces (e.g. a conversation space in chat where people or bots are talking). We'll take a bug to fix this so it's more clear!

On the topic of bugs:

---

I tested the new features few time for the last couple of months, I observed unknown bugs (even a day before) ... And the features are not working as they are documented.

---

We certainly strive to ensure all our features function exactly as intended, and to provide accurate documentation on said intended function. But, I recognize that's definitely not always the case -- especially for new features like Chat Apps. But, that feedback and is one of the reasons we're so grateful for the active AppSheet community and the thoroughness of members like yourself.

If you or your team do decide to start using Chat Apps again, we'd be grateful for you to share any bugs you come across so that we can continue to improve the product.

Warmly, 
Rachel

[ayates]

I just wanted to jump in to say that I'm really loving the ability to easily build Chat apps - and I think we have a number use cases where it's a perfect fit.

One of the first things I started working on with AppSheet was converting a Google Sheet that we'd been using to track news about vendors and partners that we work with into an application. This was great, as it's more robust - and allows quick and easy navigation across the data. However, it was still tricky to get people to regularly come to the app to browse (and somewhat tricky to have them remember to share items too). 

As a Chat app, people now get a notification as news gets added, as well as slash commands to easily add items. There's the additional benefit that it triggers conversation about some of those news items.

(Ideal might be if there was a way to send parameters with the slash commands (e.g. the URL of the item) so it was quicker to capture - and some way to capture and link to the threads of conversation that get started in Chat and record that in the app.)

I feel that this is a readily generalisable case - we have *many* complex spreadsheets that are occasionally updated - and with Chat as our preferred real-time notification mechanism, it seems a very natural fit to use App Sheet in this way.

cheers!

-- Andy

[Rachelgmoore]

Thanks for the kind words, Andy! Love to hear you're getting some use out of Chat Apps. The news/fact-sharing broadcast system is actually one of the first use cases we came across in our early research -- I'm so excited to hear you've got your own version of it up and running successfully!

[Koichi_Tsuji]

Thank you for your comment, but you still misunderstood what I meant to say.

The majority of my clients and possibly the majority of the community member here prefer to the simple/instant solution to send the private text messages, triggered by AppSheet, onto the Google chat.

Sending the message from AppSheet automation to either "Spaces/DM" is not a matter.  What the chat app can do is to send message to Spaces. Not a private message. Why? 

As far as I m not misunderstading something, what BOT is going to do is to send text message down to Spaces which is created by Chat App.  It is kinda of "Broadcasting". There is no option for us to send message from BOT only to "A-user" or "B-user".

I have been using Google Chat integration thorugh Webhook and number of my apps are using this webhook, which is more powerful than the new chat app, as we can customize the styles, such as sending message by CARD, or plain text etc.

Anyway, I will be one of the persons who will not use this new features and not to push to my clients, unless we found out the real-life and really practical use cases are being demonstrated by Google.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

I banned the features so it wont be an issue with us anyways, but my quick test showed a security loop hole of this new features.  We are not adding anyone to my app where the chat app is enabled, as this is my private app and personnel use (contain P&C contexts), however, anyone under the same domain can add such chat app, and view the contents. Very much dangerous, so my decision was right to ban it for now..... 

[cschalk_ws]

Actually, anyone can install the chat app and view basic listing information in the chat app catalog, but only those allowlisted in the AppSheet app can actually interact and view/update data in the chat app.
To turn off the capability to install certain chat apps, the Workspace admin can always follow instructions here https://support.google.com/a/answer/7651360?hl=en

If you can provide us with steps to reproduce this behavior where secured data from an app is being shared through chat without specific permission, please let us know!

[Rachelgmoore]

Just coming to reiterate what @cschalk_ws said. Chat apps respect AppSheet-enabled policies, as well as security filters and any other permissions set up on desktop/mobile apps to protect sensitive data. While they WILL show the "welcome card" (which lists view names configured to appear in the chat app) to any user, only authorized users will be able to click into data.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

As far as I see, it does not work in that way. 

[Koichi_Tsuji]

I found out possible root cause.  I have been accessing to chat app using the Appsheet "Root Accont" which could have full access to any app under the same domain.

[Rachelgmoore]

Got it! Hope things are working as expected now.

[Rachelgmoore]

Sorry if there is any misunderstanding. A DM is a private message to a user that is sent via a Chat App. So to be clear, yes, sending a private chat message to a specific user on chat is possible via Chat Apps and the way you'd configure that is described above.

Chat apps support the ability to send messages as a dialog so as to preserve any user-dependent context when viewing the message on chat, and you're right that they work differently than the webhook-based Chat integrations you've already built. The most important difference in how they work is their enablement and construction: That unlike a webhook, setting up simple Chat apps doesn't require users to write any code. We're hopeful that this makes them especially useful for folks who thus far haven't been able to create Chat-based functionality in their apps because it's been too technically complex.

[Ryan_Wagner]

Is it possible - maybe in the future - that rows could be edited via a Chat App that are part of a table with a security filter?

I'm all SQL and use security filters, so my dream of being able to edit a row quickly from Gmail is thus far unattainable. Maybe that will never be possible?

[Rachelgmoore]

It should be possible today! Chat apps surface responses in chat as dialogue cards, which DO have user context. So, a user would only be able to see data in the card that an app's underlying security filter would allow them to see in the webapp.

If you've tried this and it's not working, please let us know and we'll look into it.

[Steve]

Not seeing how this feature is "no-code". Looks pretty complicated to me.

I agree with @Koichi_Tsuji that Google would do well to focus more on the fundamentals and less on fancy niche features.

[Denzil_Snyman]

Is it only me that imagining that someone is putting as much effort in polishing existing things to be feature  complete such as the appsheet and Doc's template to have better basic control over existing Docs features such as page numbers, cleaner page breaks, etc... Perhaps the team have a quick look at Stimusoft's approach for ideas as.controlling the layout at the moment is not speeding up any workflow, cannot preview on the fly and it's more time consuming to design a complicated tempate than it needs to be. 

The charts system is about 5 years behind to even basic competitors. Data studio is an option but not integrated into app properly and being both Google products I'm sure getting both joined up is not nearly as hard as building chat features. Businesses want important KPI's and reporting as this is the final end point of why data was captured in first place. This should be focused on to get reports and KPI's more easily. I can build a new app faster than I can get templates to look the way clients need it to. 

Polish bugs, make stable, then preview new features when Users are happy with existing ones. 

[Ami]

Is there a video about it? How to setup and use cases?

[cschalk_ws]

Stay tuned! We're working on more GTM materials right now!

[Kirk_Masden]

Hi!  I noticed a little typo you might want to fix.  There is a sentence that starts "to trigger automation" but the first word of the sentence isn't capitalized.  This is under the heading "Submitting IT Support or Help Desk tickets."

[cschalk_ws]

Thanks! Fixed!

[OptimiX_XcrY]

Hi,

Dropdowns based on select() formulas still don't work in Chat Apps (empty).

We need that , thank you.

 

[cschalk_ws]

Thank you for bringing this up! We are currently investigating this and will report back as we find out more. 
Feel free to share any more info on how to specifically to recreate this issue, that's always helpful!

Cheers!

[Sarmad_Hashmi]

Thank you for reporting this! Could you contact us through support so we can better debug the issue with the specific application? Thank you!

[OptimiX_XcrY]

Hi,

I first reported this in january 27. I am unable to open a ticket or give acces to the app at the moment, but I can show you that there is a pretty simple dependent dropdown. 

I hope this screenshots will help

 

Thank you for looking into it

[BriarBeard]

I am really liking the new chat app feature in appsheet. However, I am running into one issue. How can I get the chat message information returned to the appsheet app (thread id)? I have cards created in my appsheet project and they are posted as messages in chat. This allows team members to use the threaded response and discuss the cards. I would really love to be able to grab the thread information so that it can be linked on the app's card to make it easier to find the chat thread in the future. 

I would also love to be able to send a message to the original thread that was created by the bot when a new row was added. The problem is, the bot's message does not return any information. If it returned the thread information I could store it and use a webhook to continue posting to the same thread.

[OptimiX_XcrY]

Hello,

We can't type/search in a dropdown anymore in a chat app. I have to scroll down to find the enum item i need.

Please fix this new bug.

 

Thanks

[nico]

One thing to improve your workflow, when you click on the dropdown to open it, you can type the first letter of the item you want in the dropdown to jump to selections that start with that letter.

There unfortunately isn't support for full searchability within a dropdown menu but hopefully that gets you pretty close!