[early alpha] Looking for early testers of new AppSheet database feature

[carlinyuen]

Hello community!

We're in the early stages of testing a new AppSheet database feature, and we'd love to have a few folks help us test it out. The problems we're trying to solve center around brittleness and scalability issues with using spreadsheets today:

• When new people try AppSheet, they often find it confusing to jump back and forth between the spreadsheet and the app editor.
• There's a lot of friction in the process of data modeling (needing to update, then regenerate schema, then fix errors).
• Spreadsheets do not scale well for large data sets and many concurrent users. Cloud DBs require administration and extra provisioning steps.

Criteria for testers:

• Have built more than 2 apps in AppSheet using Sheets as a data source.
• Have felt challenges using Sheets and the current data modeling experience.
• Interested in trying very early features that may change the current UX and break/not be fully functional and give constructive feedback.

If you are interested in testing this feature, please sign up here.

[DarenJanes]

I don't think 10,000 rows will cut it.

[SkrOYC]

I said maybe since the Tables project (under Area 120) is not the same as the AppSheet Database feature that is now on alpha.

Both may share certain backend and frontend features but we are talking about AppSheet here and how it can benefit from something like an "Internal AirTable" setup.

All of this is based on the article I read, I guess we should wait for the public preview around new feature

[dbaum]

@carlinyuen, what's the current status of this potential new feature? Is there a timeline for formal release?

[Karimmc2]

Has anyone been using this database in daily-use Apps? 

I would like to know your opinion on moving to this database some tables used in core operation Apps. Is it stable/reliable enough for this. 

I'm looking for a higher performance solution than Google Sheets. 

[dbaum]

This feature is not yet intended for production apps.

• "Caution: this service should only be used for testing and is not ready for production data. All data will be wiped at a later date."

[dbaum]

FYI - I received the following notification today for the account from which I participated in this early alpha testing.

all AppSheet databases will be deleted on September 27

[Karimmc2]

Thanks!

[SkrOYC]

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@Karimmc2 wrote:

I'm looking for a higher performance solution than Google Sheets

---

IMO, your datasource makes little difference when it comes to performance, unless you move to SQL and you use Security Filters with tables that hold thousands of records. Don't overuse Virtual Columns, that's the #1 performance killer

[Karimmc2]

Thanks,

This actually worked pretty well. Sync time dropped from 70 to 10 seconds just by removing most of the virtual columns. Did this by splitting the app into 2, one for data capture and one for data visualization.

[SmartsheetGuru]

Signed up!  Hopefully I can take part in this test 🙂 .  I've used Smartsheet, Google Sheets, and Office 365 as back ends for production apps, and have recently started experimenting some with SQL cloud data bases.

[EliK]

@carlinyuen @lizlynch 

A new databases option just showed up in my account on the "My Apps" screen!

Is that what this is? Did I miss the community announcement?

Here is a screenshot:

When I click it brings me to a sample database with some starter data:

I would love to hear more about where this project is holding and what we can expect from this in the futue!

[lizlynch]

@EliK 

Yes! The preview release is available! The announcement (and release notes) should be posted shortly!

[EliK]

🎉@lizlynch Thanks!

Looking forward!

Is there a way to import tables into the database, or will all new entries need to be put in manually? What I would love to do right now is import a sheet into the new database, together with all of its linked tables, and see how it works. It would be cumbersome to have to manually enter all that data to test it out.

[lizlynch]

@EliK - Importing from a Google Sheet is coming! For now, you can copy and paste content directly from a Google Sheet.

FYI @ShirleyN 

[EliK]

@ShirleyN @lizlynch 

Thanks! It looks like for now, even before you can copy and paste from the google sheet, you need to add all of he columns and column names, and column types, before you can begin pasting your data. Would it be possible to have it automatically add the columns and column names from the top row of the pasted data?

[ShirleyN]

Thanks for trying this out! Another work around besides copy and paste is to export your data source from the AppSheet editor. 

[lizlynch]

FYI, I've added a note about this workaround in Create and copy databases.
Thanks for the question/answer! 🙂