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AppSheet Training Guide: Expressions 101
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In our last blog post we looked at how to design a database for our Employee Onboarding App. In this post we are going to look at how to add some expressions to our Employee Onboarding App to help with the user navigation experience.
Basic
For our first example, we are going to create a profile page for employees to edit. This functionality will enable users to edit an individual profile page as opposed to having access to edit every user's profile page. To create this feature in AppSheet, we will use a simple comparison expression. Let’s take a look at how to set this up:
- Create a Slice called ‘My Profile’
- Use a Comparison Expression to display only the current user’s profile
- Create a New View that is targeting the new slice’s data
Description: This is the new slice that is only displaying data where the email column is equal to the user email that is currently logged into the App. Now that we have our slice set up we can jump to step two.
Description: Next, we have to set up our comparison expression that is comparing the current user email to the email column from the team table. This is the simple comparison expression we are using to only display the current users profile page to the user that is currently logged in to their app.
Description: Lastly, we set up our view in the UX tab and made sure to target the My Profile (Slice) to make sure that this data is displayed correctly when user’s navigate to this view.
My Profile Page View
Description: This is an example of how this feature looks in action. When a user clicks the My Profile card they are navigated to the detail view of only their card to edit and no longer have the option to edit other users profiles. This is great for creating a guided user experience for our end users of the Employee Onboarding App.
Intermediate
Next, we are going to create a deeplink that uses a filter view of the resources table. To create this feature in our app we will add one additional table to our Employee Onboarding Database.
- Create a new table called Category
- Create a new view called Resource Category
- Create a new action that uses the LINKTOFILTEREDVIEW() Expression
Category Table
ID | Name |
9454B884 | Expressions |
28AA8E0A | Training |
0325BE74 | Enterprise Training |
090F06EA | Certification |
CFC4DB5A | Weekly Webinar |
Description: Our new table is using the category column from our Resource table and creating unique records to filter each category by their Unique ID. Before we get to that let’s first look at setting up our next view. Also, use this helpful Google Sheets formula to generate unique ID’s in your Google Sheets data: =DEC2HEX(RANDBETWEEN(0, 4294967295), 😎. Also, don’t forget to use paste values only as the google sheets formula will continue to update every time a record is created, changed, or edited.
Description: This is an example of how to set up the Resource Categories View. For this example we selected to use a table view and positioned it as a ref view.
Description: Now that we have created our Link to filtered view action we can begin creating the expressions that will enable us to filter this data. The above expression filters data based on the categories we set up in our Category Table. Using this expression we are able to now create the user navigation shown below.
Link to Filtered View Navigation
Advanced
For our final no-code magic trick, I want to show how to create a dynamic menu that changes based on who is logged in to the app. This is a great feature to add to your AppSheet apps if you want your menu to change based on which user is logged into your app.
For this feature we will complete the following steps:
- Create a new slice
- Enter a row filter condition using the IF() and IN() expressions.
Description: The above pictures show how to create a new slice that filters our Menu Table based on the current user who is logged in to the app. Take a look at the animation below to see how the menu changes if you are a new user to this app.
Menu View
Description: This animation shows that when Austin or Camron are logged into this app they can view all of the different Menu navigation features. However, when a new employee, Ron, in our example, tries to log into the app for the first time they will be prompted to ‘Join the Team’ and fill out their information to be loaded as a new user for this app. Once this is done, they can now see all the menu items to begin their Onboarding Process.
Copy & Customize: Employee Onboarding App
Let’s Review
Overall, expressions are a great tool in AppSheet that allow you to create the experience you want for the end users of your app. To learn more about expressions make sure to sign up for our Professional Subscription and get access to the AppSheet Essential Bootcamp to see what else is possible with Expressions.
Plus, all subscribers will get access to our Expressions Mastery Bootcamp which is coming out next month! So, make sure to subscribe to the Professional Subscription to start automating your workflows today!
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Happy Developing,
Austin from AppSheet Training
