Device-Only Columns (Moon shot request)

MultiTech
Participant V

Often I find that I need to build a place to store a temporary variable (something that a user can select, and when they do it triggers or brings about special functionality [like sorting, or filtering for the specific selection the user made, etc.]).

The problem here is that as people interact with the system, they accumulate many (sometimes dozens) of updates that have to be uploaded to the cloud.
2X_b_b240347d18ee0a47da79dbaf76d16a7335f5088d.gif
In the gif above, each time I change the filter you can see there is an upload sync that needs to go to the cloud. These don’t need to be uploaded, and if I was in the field on mobile data things like this could start to easily eat up data.


What I propose is a toggle for a column that will exclude it’s data from being uploaded to the cloud, any data put into the column would only be stored on the device temporarily while you’re working with things.
2X_6_6ed0a83b4e2e3ee7aaca33ae46b1d6cff0eeae9b.png

Each device running the app has it’s own version of the tables, it’s own database, so in theory you could store independent data there (that is separate from the cloud data) if you had a way of indicating that the column needs to be handled differently.

If we could setup any column like normal, like an Enum (for some nice buttons like you see in the gif above), and be able to interact with it - but the data isn’t stored except for the “current session” or something - this would give us the ability to create interaction type fields along the “Show” column type vein.

Picture this: as you make edits to the field the data is written into the column on your device, but during sync the data would be reset (because of the Device-only toggle) giving you a clean form to interact with again (while not accumulating any unnecessary data usage).

__
I know…
But if this were a thing, then we could include all sorts of “form variables” - things specific to a user and how they’re working with the app/data - and remove all the back-and-forth temporary interaction data that doesn’t need to be saved.

Similar things have been requested before (that’s how we got UserSettings); perhaps this functionality makes sense now that the platform is more advanced.

Thanks for considering!

Status Under Review
28 8 538
8 Comments
Austin
Participant V

I think having the ability to interact with the user table directly(ie assign values from actions) or being able to create a device specific table would be as good/easier than having specific columns be device specific.
I would take any form of this feature though!

Jonathan_S
Participant V

So True,

What about being able to do this in virtual columns? Enum list displayed as buttons.
Virtual column values would not be saved. I think this would be the quickest easier solution for Devs.

Koichi_Tsuji
Participant V

The problem seems to be virtual column is not editable…

Jonathan_S
Participant V

Yes, but they could make them editable for enums. Would open up allot more possibilities

MultiTech
Participant V

Indeed.

stuggijo
Participant IV

Yes. I am also very curious to see that feature. That would be great and reduce much sync processes
and save time that is not needed anyway.

Status changed to: Open
Pratyusha
Community Manager
Community Manager
 
Status changed to: Under Review
Roderick
Community Manager
Community Manager