App upgrade & data migration, looking for suggestions

[jeffminder]

Looking for an easier way to manage users' data during migrations.   There are 4 sheets which contain data input by users.  All others are derivations used for specific calculations or views.  The four user-data sheets also contain formulas.  Exporting a sheet it picks up the values, but not the formulas behind them.  This prevents from using exports currently, as it generates more work.   Exporting/Importing for each sheet also seems combersome, as users tend to mess this up.   What I've been doing is copy/paste the cell range of interest from old=>new.  Typically this would be the 2nd row across all columns, for example: "A2:O". 

Where have I gone wrong?   Don't be shy.  🙂

[WillowMobileSys]

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@jeffminder wrote:

Where have I gone wrong?   Don't be shy.  🙂

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I would not recommend using formulas in the sheets...period!   Transition them into the app.  Should you ever migrate to a database, sheet formulas will be problematic.  The only time I think they are okay is when using the QUERY() formula to create something like a Summary Table.  This can be easily re-created in another tool and doesn't directly impact the app.

That said, what kind of migration are you doing?  Why are users exporting/importing into the sheets?

[jeffminder]

There are several instances where Query functions are used to summarize/correlate across tables because sheets was more powerful in those areas. 

Stumbled into creating this; seeing now made a wrong turn with data structure.  App collects stats from events, and provides summary output.   Look like the per-row event calc/summary could be better handled inside appsheets.   One of the perhaps bad decisions that drove the design to allow self-standing summaries within sheets was uncertainty of this platform being stable long-term.   That was a question in the beginning.  Guess it can't be answered definitively, but that question/fear largely led this route. 

As app functionality evolved beyond existing schema, sheets needed to expand as well.   Surely better ways of doing all this, I assume...   

[SkrOYC]

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@WillowMobileSys wrote:

I would not recommend using formulas in the sheets...period!

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Facts!