How to refactor big app for multiple smaller modular appsheet applications

[iPlomberie]

Hi all, 

Let's say I have an application named "Company Info" that is becoming quite big. It's becoming kinda like a small ERP. Now I want to refactor that to split into multiple smaller App so that one App can consume, (mostly read data) from another App. Let's say We have two apps called "Human Ressources" that manage all employee related data and "Inventory" that manage all our Stock Item needed to run the business. Now I have another app that is "Quote calculator". This app need to choose from the "HR" app from the list of qualified employee, also, the app needs to have access to the "Inventory" app to select the parts we need and have the price for quoting properly.

What I've done for now is simply adding the table needed as "read only" from the other app I need. The issue I see is that when I add a new column in the read-only app, all the other app become outdated because the table has changed. I am not sure if this is the right way to do it, but I don't know if I have another way to do it. I have not found a way to create a link to another app and query the table to get all the employee name for instance instead of loading all the table. Also, I have not found a way to get only the data needed. For example, I don't want the employee that have access to the HR indirectly to private and personal data about the employee. 

[AleksiAlkio]

When using Google Sheets as a data source, you could create a a separate read-only sheet in your spreadsheet for example with a QUERY() reading just those columns that you need. The bad thing is that it will affect the performance in both apps.

If you are using a real database as a data source, you could create a view in your database from your original table and use that one when ever a read-only table is needed.. and it won't have the same "bad" performamce effect.

[iPlomberie]

Hi Aleksi,

I have not tried the Appsheet Database as data source until now. I use a lot of appscript app for more complex functions. As you pointed out in the post, the script cannot connect to the data directly. I would have to go through the Appsheet API. 1 year later, is it still the same state or appsheet Database has evolve since then.