Help! I'm new to AppSheet, and need to create...

[Charlie_Wells]

Help! I’m new to AppSheet, and need to create an app to log passengers and cars boarding our island ferry. The crew will be filling out the form offline, then sync with the backend at the end of their shift. Our office will then be able to see ferry boardings etc. on the spreadsheet.

Now here is the problem: The crew needs to be able to work with a blank form at the start of each shift. On the backend, however, the office needs to keep track of all the data for recordkeeping. Syncing the app with the backend will grab and show all records on the app, which is bad; I want the app form to be blank at the start of each shift.

Is there a way to clear the form on the app, and prevent it from reloading all the records from the backend? I suspect that the answer is no, which will be a real bummer…

thanks!

-Joseph

[Charlie_Wells]

Maybe I can mark records as ‘Synced’ after a sync and not display those records on the app? If so, what would be the best way to do that? Thank you!

[Charlie_Wells]

… maybe use a slice, where I exclude all records that have been synced? (slowly getting the hang of this?)

[Grant_Stead]

@Charlie_Wells yes, the slice or even a security filters would be the way to go here!

[Grant_Stead]

You can even make it to where the ferry operators can only see the forms they have uploaded that day, shift, etc…

[Charlie_Wells]

Thanks @Grant_Stead - I’ll give all that a try. As long as I know it’s doable I’ll figure it out (I hope!). And thanks too for the swift response!

[Charlie_Wells]

Hi @Grant_Stead - sorry to bug you. It looks like there’s a variable called “lastSyncTime” in the Audit Log Details Properties. I can just check the timestamp on the records synced into the backend and not display them if the timestamp on them is earlier (which it will be). Do you know if there’s a way I can check that variable? Will all that date math slow things down? Typically each table (shift) will have about 20 records (small ferry!), times 10 shifts a day, and the office will periodically slurp the data out of the spreadsheet and into Excel every couple of days.

[Grant_Stead]

@Charlie_Wells

nah, you can’t access a lot of the meta information… You can build everything you need from what I’m seeing,like… Really, your ferry guys don’t even need to see anything, they can do strict input… I would make a car button and a people button… Tap tap tap while loading, then lock the gate records those quantities and woes the temporary table… Easy day

[Charlie_Wells]

@Grant_Stead thanks! If only it were that easy. What you’re describing was exactly the form I had created using another form builder, but for a variety of legacy and operational reasons it wasn’t acceptable. The ability to display crew input in tabular form is a major part of the spec, and it’s the main reason I went with AppSheet. I’ll figure it out - I have some ideas already.

Thanks!

[Grant_Stead]

@Charlie_Wells good luck, I understand that… Bummer it is