How/Where to store user data for Whitelabel App pu...

pdorenberg · 05-05-2020 08:12 AM

I’m working on developing a new application that I would like to publish on Google Play and Apple App Store.

The new app functionality and features, would be generally available for users, but would store data just for that (each) user individually (think maybe 50 records/rows). In other words, I don’t want to host or leverage a central data store or database (that stores all app user data) but rather have this new App, store “user specific data” “locally” for each user.

My question to AppSheet community is, what is an appropriate approach or method of handling this scenario?
For example, if they sign in / authenticate with a gmail account, would their “data” be store on google drive (or Apple, or Dropbox etc)?

Alternatively, could the “data store - spreadsheet/database etc”, be stored locally on their phone?

Looking for some feedback on how best to proceed with publishing a white label application that stores user data specific to each user.

Please advise.

Thanks,
Paul

Steve

This can be done with private tables, but the structure of a private table cannot be manipulated by the app once instantiated, only the content.

The closest you can get to a local store is user settings, which is device-local, but cannot be changed by the app, only read. Changes to user settings must be initiated by the device user.

pdorenberg

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the info on private tables.

Could private tables be manipulated when doing an upgrade to the app? I’m thinking the users would only update the content and not the structure.

This sounds interesting, I’ll have to check the private tables.

I’m new to AppSheet, so thank you very much for this info!

Thanks,
Paul

Steve

Not really: there’s literally no mechanism for changing the structure of an existing table by any means. To change the structure, the only option would be to add a new table with the new structure and migrate the data, but you’d have to engineer that yourself. It would not be easy, and I’m not entirely sure it would work. You could add tables and extend your data set across them, of course.

Similarly, there’s no upgrade hook to apply changes to the data during the upgrade. You could probably engineer a solution with AppSheet’s capabilities, but it would be difficult.

I think the long and short of is that AppSheet really isn’t designed for the model you want, so you’d be working against the grain, in my opinion.

How/Where to store user data for Whitelabel App published on Google Play / Apple App Store