Auto-create column

[Mark_11]

Hi,
i’m thinking about a new application; i’m wondering if there is a way to auto-create column where “necessary”.
I need to collect information about tasks done by employees, but i don’t know in advance how many, those task, will be.
Is something like that:

Imagine to have 3 task as constant, plus a suggested “task 4” and assume to have a not define numbers of other optional tasks.

Can i teach to appsheet to create a “task 5” - “task 6” and so on only when the previous one is not blank?

If not, or if there is a simplier way to manage this kind of necessity, i’m open to any suggestions.

thanks

[WillowMobileSys]

Hi @Mark_11 Unfortunately not and it is difficult to do what you are suggesting in most software systems. Software systems are designed to add rows dynamically but not columns.

It is natural, from the usage of spreadsheets, to think of things like this as columns of information. But whenever you have data that you cannot predict how many columns you will need, you should immediately think about the problem in terms of rows.

But lets think about your sample table for a moment. For each task column you actually have several pieces of information you are conveying - Task Order, Task Description, Task Status.

So, instead of a table of Employees Tasks. Think of your data as a table of simply Tasks. It might look like:

And what if you decide to add additional Task data - say Date and Time started, ended, duration, etc. With a table like that above you can easily add additional Task attributes. Maybe it might now look like:

Now you can easily assign as many Tasks as needed to each employee.

From an application design perspective this is the route you would want to take to prevent headaches down the road.

Hope this helps!

[Mark_11]

Thanks.
Seems legit to me.
So i’ll change the way to manage the tasks;
how can i regroup these tasks at the end of the shift. Assume to have 5 tasks done in the morning. At 12 o’clock i would like to report these tasks in a PDF; can i use some formula with a timestamp to extract the information? Or maybe an action like “ok, my shift is done, print a PDF with what i’ve done”

[WillowMobileSys · Accepted solution]

Yes, you will be able to extract the information in any way you need…with appropriate expressions of course.

AppSheet provides the capability to generate PDF files using templates. Using this support search link you can get more information on working with PDF’s within AppSheet.

https://www.appsheet.com/Support?q=PDF&hPP=10&idx=help&p=0&is_v=1

There are a couple of ways to create the PDF report:

1. An Action button that a user taps requesting the report be created.
2. A timed activity called a “Report” in AppSheet. These automatically run at appointed times.

Both can use a PDF template to create the file.

You can search in support for more details on any of these topics. I don’t want to overwhelm with too much here.

[Mark_11]

Thanks, i’ll be back to ask more in the future, when i will have make some progress in this project.