Google Workspace is making it easier to build AppSheet apps from Google Sheets

We’re excited to announce that Google Workspace is making it even easier for app builders to create AppSheet apps in Google Sheets. Check out our blog post to learn more:

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Cortex
Participant IV

Great News,

Can you add more specific about this:

Plus, Workspace customers using AppSheet will be given access to our Free plan, and Workspace Enterprise+ can now have full access to AppSheet Pro.

My company is a Gsuite Entreprise Client, wich means a “futur” Workspace Entreprise+

  1. Does it means all the apps i build and share with my co-worker or other Enterprise+ client will don’t need any more licenses ?

Being part of Google Workspace Enterprise+ will provide you the AppSheet PRO entitlement — so if the AppSheet features you use are PRO features (none of the corporate plan features), and the users of your app are all in the Enterprise+ plan with GSuite, then you don’t need separate AppSheet licenses for them.

The simple way to think of this is — if your organization adopts GSuite Enterprise+, then you can build apps using the AppSheet PRO feature set and deploy them to your colleagues at no additional cost. If you build apps that need corporate plan features (eg: connect to a SQL DB) or target external users, etc, then there is no change from today’s behavior.

Thanks for the fast answer , [ as always ]

Thats quite a big news, i’m surprised the forum is still not echoing this announcement, even Google was a bit “shy” about this change.

This will highly make company citizen builder and/or AppSheet App Adoption more easy and fast.

Google and Appsheet made the right move to duplicate what MS have done with their office365 User and PowerApp.

Now, AppSheet is truly a GSuite Tool, with the same easy acces as all the others : Sheet, Forms, Calendar Etc…

Merge is on the way !!

Hope in the futur the GCP DB product [ SQL, FireStore, BigTable, etc… ] will be integrated in this Workspace Enterprise+ Offer.

Regards,

What I understand from this is that we’re still able to use Appsheet Pro with separate AppSheet licenses without having Google Workspace Enterprise+, right?

That is a great addition.

Hi @praveen, Will this allow us to use our email domain, to send emails. Cuz many customer requirement is to send email from their domain…

Thanks,
Senthil

Agreed details are limited about what this means to those of us using G-Suite, and by association Appsheet through G-Suite.

Our Company is currently has a G Suite Business subscription plan. This has given us a free Appsheet Pro plan. Does the company now need to subscribe to a separate paid Appsheet plan?

From what I understood , members of a G enterprise organization can also build apps.

I think many of us would only need (and join) lower G plans, with organization members just as app users.

Yes, anyone can use AppSheet. You’d just need to purchase the appropriate AppSheet licenses for you app users, just as you do today.

Yes, just as you do today.

Brian, I understand the confusion. There are two things to clarify. Across the board, AppSheet doesn’t need licenses for app creation. App creation is free, but app creators need licenses for app users of deployed apps. There are different plans depending on the app features you use, and it affects the cost-per-app-user. The only change announced is that if you have users who are part of the Google Workspace Enterprise+ offering, they get to use appsheet apps without being counted towards AppSheet license requirements. So it is strictly a benefit when it applies and a no-op otherwise. Wrt AppMaker, we did a one-off offer to mitigate the pain customers felt due to the deprecation of AppMaker. I do not know the timeframe of that mitigation, but that is something you can follow up with your Google rep. I expect we will have some structured communication around that. The main thing to keep in mind is — our goal with this announcement are to make AppSheet more accessible. We are not taking away anything that is currently in place.

@praveen Are you saying that the users of an app need the AppSheet licenses, not the developers?

Yep, that’s pretty much what he’s saying. Except, it’s really hard to develop and not be a tester, and be counted toward the MAU.

So bottom line is that in Google’s new pricing scheme, I would theoretically need enterprise licenses for my entire org if they will all need access to apps I create in AppSheet?

@Brian_Gorsky, this isn’t a new pricing scheme. AppSheet has always been priced this way. App creation is free, but the creator pays for the users of their app. The simple principle behind it is this — if you build an app but nobody uses it, you derive no value, so you don’t pay for it. If you build an app and 10 people use it, you probably get twice as much value as if 5 people use it (I know this is approximate and doesn’t map to all situations, but that is the rough logic). So you purchase licenses depending on usage. But we focus only on active users per month (so if you invited 20 people but only 10 actually use it, you buy 10 licenses, not 20). And also, you can build any number of apps for them, not just one.
All of these are principles we’ve had in place for the last five years in our pricing model, and that hasn’t changed at Google. The only change just announced is to make some AppSheet licenses available as part of the package along with one high-end Google Workspace (formerly known as GSuite) SKU.
I hope this clarifies

@Grant_Stead, to be fair, that’s why we have prototype apps, and each can have upto 10 users and they are free. We’ve had this model for almost 5 years and intentionally to enable easy testing and demonstrating app success first before having to pay anything.

b_gorsky1
Participant V

@praveen I’m confused. We have to stay in the Business tier, although we will probably have to “upgrade” to Business Plus. We got the special AppSheet Pro license for previous AppMaker users earlier this year. Will we be able to keep that AppSheet licensing or have to upgrade to Enterprise?

If we do have to upgrade to Enterpise and Google allows us to do PDL, will I only need to have my AppSheet “developers” on Enterprise while the users remain on Business? Or can no one in the Business plans even use the apps created in AppSheet?

b_gorsky1
Participant V

I take no issue with the licensing model; I was just trying to clarify it. Hoping that so long as Google honors the deal they announced earlier this year for former AppMaker customers (below) that this will be a non-issue for us. Clearly this has more to do with the restructuring of the G Suite/Workspace pricing tiers than AppSheet itself. Thanks @praveen

We’ve created a special hybrid of the AppSheet PRO Plan that includes a connection to your Cloud SQL instance at no additional charge to your G Suite subscription. This offer applies to existing App Maker customers who have active apps and will apply as long as you are a G Suite customer.

@praveen Sadly, the feedback I am getting from my Google renewals rep is that to keep AppSheet, we will be forced to go to Enterprise or purchase it separately as an add on. That would be at least an $8/user/month increase for us and a complete betrayal on Google’s part.

If you have any influence, I would urge you to reach out to Google management and urge them to honor their promise to the previous AppMaker customers.

@Brian_Gorsky could you please send an email describing this to support@appsheet.com ccing me (pravse@google.com or praveen@appsheet.com). I will get us to a clear answer asap.

@praveen Done.

Ami
Participant V

In the video about work safety it states that the manager receives a notification of an incident. I have asked about this in the past, so is there a new feature that posts notifications on a dashboard view and also refreshes the dashboard as new data is in?

Hi Ami,

You can set up your app so managers can receive notifications via SMS texts or emails. As of now there is not a feature for notification alerts in the dashboard view. You can create a view that logs new rows of data, then include that view in your dashboard so you can track the latest alerts.

Hi
That view will not update as well. The idea behind a dynamic dashboard view is that it will sync every few minutes. Otherwise its simply a nice presentation.
Even a google sheet can auto refresh in an interval set by the user. I realy hope you will add this feature as it is hard to convince clients to purchase the app without it

I think this refers to sending a message (SMS or Email or push notification) to a person with appropriate information and a link back to the app.
We’ve had this capability in workflow rules for a few years. Actions in a workflow rule can also update data in a sheet/table which shows in a dashboard.

Seeing you subsequent response, it sounds like you want to have background sync (which we do support) with a faster refresh rate than we currently have. This is a very fair ask and on our roadmap.

Thank you @praveen. The current sync is set to 30 minutes.

Just to explain the current setting ---- for an arbitrary app, there is no reasonable way to know if the data has changed or not. The spreadsheet may have formulas that bring in data from external sources. Spreadsheet formulas may depend on time or on data in a different sheet. Someone may change the backend sheet or database bypassing AppSheet. As a result, each sync needs to fetch all of the data. If we just do a sync every minute, it will drive a lot of fetches of the same data, will overload our servers and will also use up your Drive API quota of API calls.
So 30 mins is a default compromise. If the user makes any update, then the sync is immediate though.
For us to do better, we need to ensure some guarantees:
a) any change to the data goes through the AppSheet service
b) the security filters and virtual columns are simple enough that we can reason about which users need to be refreshed for which change
This is something we are hoping to work on soon.
FYI @Harsh_Ch @vinothp @Scott_Haaland @Phil

I am not a coder, but the logic i think about is that the user can set which data changes would refresh on the view. Not all views have to sync imediatly as data changes within the app.

Would there be any chance of getting a faster than 30 minute check for database users? Maybe requiring some kind of “Appsheet hosted database” extra service to enable?
My biggest question is would this be a never happening feature, a far possibility, or something that could be soon?

Austin, this is a “will happen” feature. Timeframe is tricky to predict because I no longer shoot-from-the-hip the way I did in a smaller company. However, please know that sync time, data currentness and improved system stability are IMO the three highest priorities wrt improving the behavior of the current system.

We have a system that is currently using appsheet and very much desires real time data. We have methods around the delays currently and inevitably will grow to a custom solution in years to come. If Appsheet was able to get closer to that it would let us push off the massive undertaking it would be to go custom. Just the possibility that this is coming will let me help guide our decisions for the future.

Curious if you and your team have been working on the refresh rate behind the scenes. A client of mine has an IOT integration and is hoping for more on stream data.

The notification can be received via sms, mail, Google Chat etc , or as a classic notification on mobile devices.

By clicking/opening that notification , a refreshed designated app can opened, in a programmed view (a notification can be build so it forces a sync).

The dashboard from the video was probably opened by clicking a notification received in any number of forms.