Hello all, Just wanting to get some feedback...

[Jenn_M]

Hello all,

Just wanting to get some feedback on what the best approach might be for app design, or whether the following scenario is possible (explained in broad terms).

I have a source workbook, call it a master table. See attached image. I need an application where I can (1) pull a row from this table and edit it and (2) add a new row.

However, before these rows get inserted back into the master table, they must pass a set of to-dos and checklists (such as shirts ordered, received, in service). After the last to-do has been completed, row can then get inserted back into master table and all to-dos, checklists, comments, associated with that row can

be deleted.

I was imagining either one Appsheet containing the master sheet and communicating with a “checklists” Appsheet or simply one Appsheet with different sections. I’ve had issues trying to create both (I have limited knowledge).

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[tony1]

@Jenn_M If the to-dos and checklists are the same for each row and won’t change often, then I’d recommend the following:

First, don’t think about removing/inserting the rows back into the master table. Instead, create a new column called Status that indicates whether the row is finished or not. You can use a slice to view just the unfinished or just the finished rows in your table. help.appsheet.com - Slices: The Essentials https://www.appsheet.com/samples/This-app-shows-how-to-slice-your-data?appGuidString=984a5f04-96f6-4...

Second, add a column for each to-do task. You can make it a Yes/No type column.

Third, you can use an app formula in your Status column that checks whether all of the to-do columns are finished. The formula would look like this:

AND([Todo1] = TRUE, [Todo2] = TRUE, [Todo3] = TRUE)

https://help.appsheet.com/data/columns/app-formulas-and-initial-values

Slices: The Essentials help.appsheet.com

[Jenn_M]

Thanks for your response. Interesting, I didn’t think about using slices.

I wonder if your solution would work for what I have in mind? I oversimplified by quite a bit when I said “checklists” and “to dos”.

The table actually has many more columns. For example, one employee might have pants (this column doesn’t show in the image I attached) but no shirts. Another may have shirts, pants, long sleeved shirts. Another may have customization options that require a lot of additional details to be filled out.

The to-dos/checklists involve making sure if additional (for example) shirts were added, that the quantity required, matched the quantity ordered (at which point status changes to “ordered”), was received in the entire quantity, customized (if needed), then invoiced. Finally, when everything was complete, our process was to record the shirt quantity change manually into a separate “master” sheet. The checklist records were then disregarded and deleted.

The most important purpose of the app is to monitor when changes are made to employees’ apparel and when those changes are made, to be able to track where each piece of apparel is in the “checklist” process. For example, are they still waiting to be received, are they only partially received, have they been invoiced?

Yet, to make a simple change such as when a pair of pants needs to be decreased, not nearly so many details/checklists are needed. It would be an extremely lengthy process to answer every checklist for only a simple change.

For now, I have a separate app that asks what kind of change is needed and based on that answer, shows only certain kinds of “checklists”. However, this app doesn’t reference the master list in any way-- we input company, employee, current shirt model, size and any other details manually as needed. I would love to reference back to the master sheet.

Sorry for the lengthy response.

Thanks again for your time.

[tony1]

@Jenn_M You can conditionally show/hide information in your forms using show_if constraints. That might be a good first step: help.appsheet.com - Show_If Column Constraint

If each item has its own idiosyncratic checklist items, then you might want to have two tables in your app. One table is for items. The other table is for todos, where each todo item references a particular item. https://help.appsheet.com/data/references/references-between-tables https://www.appsheet.com/samples/A-basic-demo-of-table-references?appGuidString=6ffad040-b04a-4325-a...

To monitor changes to your app, you can use slices in the way that I mentioned (have a slice for each “stage”). You can also send email notifications to keep track of changes. https://help.appsheet.com/behavior#workflow-introduction Show_If Column Constraint help.appsheet.com

[Jenn_M]

@tony

I’m going to try that. My only doubt is the number of slices that may be needed, but I think I can reorganize a bit. Thanks for the input!