Use the GCP Integration Connectors as a data sourc...

derekco · 06-13-2023 08:01 AM

Connect AppSheet to SAP, Snowflake, ServiceNow and more! Check here for a list of supported connectors.

Main components of this solution:

AppSheet provides a front end interface for CRUD (create, read, update, delete) operations and process automation
The GCP Application Integration Platform has connectors to many common enterprise systems. You can create Integrations that are triggered by an API and run typical CRUD operations on the connected system.
Apigee provides a configurable API proxy to manage the connection between AppSheet and the Application Integration Platform

Who does what

IT Team: Create and manage the Apigee proxies and Integration flows
AppSheet Admin: Create an AppSheet data source using the connection details provided by IT. Share the connection as an AppSheet team data source.
Citizen Developers: Create applications using data from any of the data sources supported by the Integrations platform.

Documentation

Check out my Github page for details about how to configure the Apigee proxies and Integration flows
Check out my YouTube page for an overview of the process.

Feedback

Let me know what you think!! I'd love to hear more about use cases this opens up for you and which of the data sources are most useful.

Happy App Building!

cossa

Hi Derek,

First thanks for your videos, you are taking Appsheet in the direction that not a lot of people think it's possible (API, connect other data sources and applications).

In my personal point of view you are opening a new frontier now that google extends to frontline users it's even more important. I'm in the early stages but I'm not afraid to move forward.

I'm part of an Agriculture business in South America, Chile with more than a thousand members and I need to make a big digital transformation. We work with Workspace and Cloud from Google and my goal is to maximize, educate and use technology.

Thanks again for your videos and if you can incorporate more details, magic building appsheet a few concepts and take care of details when you connect applications it will be amazing

Thanks
Cristobal

Joseph_Seddik

@derekco Thanks for the well-written guides.

I've been considering Apigee on a pay-as-you-go plan but I failed to understand correctly the pricing model. I've used the pricing calculator and as far as I could understand the minimum base seems to be something like 1m API calls per month. The pricing for 1m calles is roughly the same as 1k calls.

Is my understanding correct? would you be able to help me with some clarifications please? Thank you.

derekco

Thank you both for the feedback.

@Joseph_Seddik the Apigee pay as you go pricing is detailed here. For most AppSheet scenarios, you only need one Apigee node.

You'll also need an external load balancer and an instance of the Application Integration platform. I made a list of expected charges below. These amounts will vary based on actual usage. Apigee is built to handle request rates up to 6k/min. So the number of requests from most AppSheet apps are at the low end of Apigee and Application Integration capacity.

Apigee pay as you go: $850/mo
Load Balancer: $20/mo
Application Integration: $2115/mo

==> Total charges to get started with Apigee and Application Integration are about $3k/mo. This is calculated using the publicly available pricing tools linked above. Feel free to modify the assumptions if needed.

Joseph_Seddik

Thanks much @derekco

@derekco wrote:

Apigee pay as you go: $850/mo

This part is where I have doubts. The pricing page shows $750/month, while the pricing calculator shows $1500/mo, I couldn't get a lesser amount. Would you please show me where did you get this $850/mo estimate from?

I omitted adding the load balancer, I'm not sure about the need for it, but it's OK, I will take your word for it 🙂

As for the application integration, I understand it is $1600 + $511 per external application connection, while Google applications connections are included, i.e. you pay only $1600. Right?

Thanks again.

derekco

$850/mo is equal to $750 for the node + $100 for 500k API requests. The 500k API requests is just a starting estimate. The actual number depends on app usage. I was using the pricing chart rather than the pricing calculator.

You can also experiment with Apigee and Application Integrations using a trial version:
Apigee free trial
Application Integration free tier

In general, the best place for customers to get pricing details is by contacting their Google account team. @Joseph_Seddik I'll follow up with you directly to get more details.

Joseph_Seddik

@derekco Thank you!

Use the GCP Integration Connectors as a data source for AppSheet