dependent dropdown issues for strange use case

[Feliponius]

Someone please help!

I'm working on creating a quote generator for an appliance company. We are attempting to automatically generate a price that depends on three things.

Appliance Type, Appliance Brand, and Job

Type and Brand are independent of one another. I've solved this problem by using the SELECT(...) feature to populate a dropdown for each of those inputs.

Job is dependent on Appliance Type. (EX. Washers will return a list of jobs for washer, Dryers a list of jobs for dryers, etc.)

I cannot seem to understand how to format this properly so that I will get jobs to populate a specific list based on which choice is selected in the  Appliance Type form input.

Thanks in advance!

[Marc_Dillon]

This is not a strange use case at all, very typical actually. I'd suggest reading the SELECT() help article more thoroughly, as well as the one on "dependent dropdowns"

https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/2357314-select

https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/961554-dependent-dropdown

[Feliponius]

I understand how to use select on my jobs form to select a specific column. What I don't know how to do is make that select function dependent on which Appliance Type is selected.

[Feliponius]

I have read both of those pages till my eyes are crossing. I'm just not seeing my solution represented here.

[Marc_Dillon]

Maybe this:

https://help.appsheet.com/en/articles/961544-dropdown-from-valid_if

Maybe the part you're missing is a [_THISROW]. dereference?

[Feliponius]

Please forgive me for being so needy, but I really have no clue what you mean by that. I really could use a more in depth explanation. Everything you've sent me thus far does not appear to answer my question.

Allow me to explain a little more clearly.

I am needing the Job field to update with jobs specific to the various Appliance Types I have. The way I've formatted my sheet is I'm using SELECT valid_if to create a dropdown for both Type and Brand

In my data for the Jobs I want to have different columns, (Washer, Dryer, Dishwasher, etc) and under those headers I would list in the same column each individual job (Pump, Filter, Housing, Timer). 

Again, I apologize for being dense. 

To be clear: I don't know whether to do this as a valid_if. I don't know if I should keep the job data in a separate sheet. Should I use a separate sheet for each appliance type list? etc.

Thank you again for your help so far.

[Marc_Dillon]

>>"In my data for the Jobs I want to have different columns, (Washer, Dryer, Dishwasher, etc) and under those headers I would list in the same column each individual job (Pump, Filter, Housing, Timer). "

Ahh, now you are finally making sense. That is a poor data structure. Lookup terms like "tabular" and "normalized" to read more on why. Change it to this, and you will have an easier time:

id	Appliance	Job
1	Washer	Pump
2	Washer	Filter
3	Dryer	Pump
4	Dishwasher	Housing

[Feliponius]

Guess I got some reading to do then 😛

I've all but decided this is beyond me at the moment. I was hoping that AppSheet would be a little more intuitive but I clearly am missing some needed knowledge base lol

I haven't given up however. Just gotta figure out how to fill in the holes in my understanding.

Thanks for getting back to me!

[Steve]

App design 101 - AppSheet Help

[Feliponius]

https://www.appsheet.com/Template/AppDef?appName=Quote-1001286685&utm_source=share_app_link

I'm unsure if I've done this right but this is a link to my sheet as it currently sits.