June 9, 2023

[lizlynch]

Deployment Time: 12:30 PM PST

Features & enhancements

Item

Description

Enhancement

New governance policies The following new governance policies are now available: Disallow webhook Restrict authentication provider Restrict external data sources and auth domains Restrict external app sharing In addition, a subset of governance policies have been renamed to provide more consistency across policies. There has be no change in functionality associated with the policy name changes. For more information, see Predefined policy templates.

Bug fixes

Item	Description
Bug	Fix "Reset on edit" for virtual columns Removes any Reset on edit behavior for virtual columns because it creates odd behavior in the client. Since it's supposed to be impossible for this to happen, because we don't allow the app creator to enable Reset on edit for virtual columns, this change should only affect the corrupted apps. This fix will be rolled out gradually. It is currently deployed to 50% of free users.
Bug	When creating an app and starting from your own data, if you opted to add a new data source during the flow, after the new data source was added you were not returned to the app creation flow. You would have to restart the process and select the new data source. You can now add a new data source when creating an app without canceling out of the app creation flow.

Rollout changes

Item	Description
Enhancement	The Expression Assistant now provides auto completion for columns, including SELECT() statements and _THISROW notation. It also provides string completions when the value will be a table or column name. See Build Expressions using Expression Assistant. New: Deployed to all users. Previous: Deployed to 100% of free users and 50% of paid users.

Preview announcements

Preview feature releases enable you to try out new app features that are not yet fully supported. See Product launch stages.

• No new preview features were released today.

What's currently available in Preview?

The following tables summarize the preview features that are currently available.

Item	Description
Feature	AppSheet databases (Preview) The new AppSheet database feature is now in preview release. An AppSheet database is a first-party, native data source for organizing and managing data powering AppSheet apps. An AppSheet database provides an easy and efficient way to build data models for any AppSheet app without needing to use an external data source solution such as cloud-based spreadsheets or databases. For more information, see: Community announcement AppSheet databases
Feature	Quick sync is now available to all users in preview Turn on Quick Sync for an app to instantly see other users' changes as they are saved. For more information, see: Community announcement Quick Sync property described in the Sync the cloud to your data source.
Enhancement	Navigation improvements in AppSheet app editor (Preview) The app editor includes navigation improvements, currently in preview, to facilitate the configuration of specific features. For example, the new Settings section in the left navigation gathers together all app-wide settings and makes it more intuitive for all app creators to find these types of settings. For more information, see: Community announcement Summary of navigation improvements in the app editor (Preview).
Enhancement	Additional usability improvements in AppSheet app editor (Preview) The app editor includes navigation and app setting improvements, currently in preview, to facilitate the configuration of specific features. The navigation improvements now include a secondary navigation panel that lets you quickly scan all of your components. In addition, there are more direct links in your View component to the table, column, or action that you want to check or edit. Finally, error and warning messages are more prominently displayed in the app. For more information, see: Further usability improvements: Simplifying the navigation in the editor Summary of improvements in the app editor (preview).
Feature	AppSheet apps for desktop users (Preview) The new desktop design, currently in preview, is optimized for desktop browsers, presenting a more complete view of information with a consistent organization and structure. The new desktop design lets users navigate their apps more easily and access information in context, and provides an efficient way to edit existing records without losing context. The legacy desktop design, enabled by default, provides an experience similar to the mobile and tablet device. For more information, see: Community article Optimize the user experience using the new desktop design (Preview)

The following features require opt-in to the AppSheet preview program. The AppSheet Preview program lets app creators try out new app features that are not yet fully supported.

Item	Description
Feature	Table view Table View now supports freezing the first column while scrolling horizontally. For details, see Freezing the first Column of a Table View - in Preview Program.
Feature	Chart Editor App Creators can now make use of our new chart editor and the new and improved charts it can create. Learn more.
Feature	Detail views Rich text formatting is now available in Detail views. For details, see this announcement in the community.

[Koichi_Tsuji]

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@lizlynch wrote:

EnhancementNew governance policies

The following new governance policies are now available:

• Disallow webhook
• Restrict authentication provider
• Restrict external data sources and auth domains
• Restrict external app sharing

In addition, a subset of governance policies have been renamed to provide more consistency across policies. There has be no change in functionality associated with the policy name changes.

For more information, see Predefined policy templates.

---

@lizlynch 

I wish to hightlight new policy of object of ; -

• Restrict external data sources and auth domains

 

We are not sure why the complete different object of 1) Ext Data Source 2) Auth Domain are governed by this single policy.  Technically speaking, there should be independent 2 x policy object to control 1) and 2) respectively.

Once this new object is in place, data source is just being limited to use only Google Sheet. It looks like the google calendar is also banned to use, which should NOT be an expected behavior as well.

Looking inside the default setting of this object, the condition is set as "NOT([HasExternalAuth])"  .  It is clearly saying this condition is controlling "External Auth Domain". However, this is not mentioning about "External Data Sources". Again, 1) and 2) is completely different subject, but the new policy is treating apple and orange as the same object....

And I tried to avoid to use pre-definited policy, but create custom policy by using NOT([HasExternalAuth]) condition. However, this is also not going to work, as this policy object is not atteched to any Component.

All in all, we wish AppSheet team to review this new policy object broadly.

1) Separate the policy into 2 independent objects (one for ext data source, and one for auth domain)

2) Create new policy object for ExternalData Source Control

3) Attach to those policy to Component so that we can use inside Custom policy.

Futhermore, we have long list of "External Data Sources" .  In reality, we wish to control a certain external data source while we allow some external data source the user can use.  Current setting is just YES or NO. If or not to allow to connect the external data sources.  This reduce the usage of this new policy and less flexible. Ideally, we wish to either white or blacklist the external data sources to control indivisually.

Thank you.

@takuya_miyai 

[Rachelgmoore]

Hi Koichi,

Thanks for the feedback.

If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like you're looking for a policy that controls access to specific data sources. Is that correct? If so, do you want to control access to individual instances of a particular source (e.g. a specific Smartsheet sheet) or any connections to a data source (e.g. Smartsheet as a data provider)? 

We currently have a policy to disallow specific data source providers ("Restrict data sources"). If you're already using that one, can you share why it doesn't fully meet your needs? What is the specific use case you're looking to fulfill?

Thanks!

[Koichi_Tsuji]

@Rachelgmoore 

Thank you for your response.

To be honest, the current documenation is not intuitive enough, so we are not sure how to exactly control the external data sources with "Restrict data sources" predefined policy, could you elabrate or ask someone else to review the documentation so that anyone can understand what it will work and how to config?

Anyway, that is not a main issue I highlighted on this occassion.

Now the new policy of 

• Restrict external data sources and auth domains 

is introduced. However, when this is in place, it will ban all the data sources. How the both policy of "Restrict data sources" and "Restrict external data sources and auth domains" can live together? 

In my original statement, I mentioned "NOT([HasExternalAuth])"  the condiion is not controlling only for the external auth (as its name suggests) but affect to the external data sourcde configs. As far as I know, "Restrict data sources" and "Restrict external data sources and auth domains" are contradicting each others.  Better to review how the policies could be set up. From my point of view, "Restrict external data sources and auth domains" policy could not be used due to this contradictions and affect other policy objects etc etc.

Hope you understand what the point is .