Optimal setup for freelance/contract developer RE:...

matty2112 · 01-18-2020 01:51 PM

Many of the Getting Started resources are very casual about account/data setup and seem to almost assume the app developer is a member of the company that will use the app. (The developer just logs in to AppSheet, connects to an available Google Drive data source, and starts building the app without much guidance on the relationship between developer, company, data source, ownership, etc.)

I’m curious what considerations should be thought about if I’m a freelance/contract developer who may end up creating solutions for multiple companies. Would I just have a single AppSheet account coupled with my own Google Drive account to store the different companies’ Sheets data? Would it make more sense to insist that each company have their own Google Drive account for storing the Sheets data? (I can imagine a company wanting to “own” the data like that.) Any reason I might go as far as setting up individual AppSheet accounts for each company? (Perhaps if the company is requesting more access and ownership of the app?)

If anyone has any thoughts or could share from their experience, I’d appreciate it. I have not started developing with AppSheet yet, but soon will be starting a project for a company as an independent contractor. I’m just trying to plan ahead to avoid needing to undo anything if I realize later there was a better setup for the relationship between AppSheet, the company(ies), and their Sheets data sources.

Thank you,
Matt

LeventK

@matty2112
The best practice is customers’ having their own mobile application associated Google account i.e. apps@customerdomain.com and delivering the login credentials of this account to you as you will be the sole developer of their application and you need seemless access. With this; the customer will always have the back-end data on their own account at all times. Provided you won’t be dealing with some sort of Google Apps Scripting, API integration etc., after you create their AppSheet account and the basic sheet and related docs, you can share them with your account for ease of access and the customer can change the login credentials.

Consider that, having customer database in your account, you need to bear with some risks because you are the sole responsible of that data and you have the responsibility for protecting the data and secure it as well. You always need to have a backup somewhere, or have replicate etc. which in time will incur some costs to you where there might be times that you can reflect these costs to the customer and where you can’t. So it needs some good strategy and balance.

Regarding the licence payment, you can use delegated billing where the customers pay you, and you pay to AppSheet. Please read below pages for that:

matty2112

Levent- Thank you for your input. Sounds like I should create separate AppSheet accounts that would be associated with individual Google accounts for each client company. I’ll plan to go that route unless I encounter any reasons, or anyone else’s input, to direct me otherwise. Thanks again. -Matt

LeventK

@matty2112
I would advise let your customers create their own accounts not you. With this, you won’t be having any responsibility over their data container. As I have explained above, it they create their own Google account and pass its credentials to you, you can easily create an AppSheet account for those emails.

Fabian_Weller

And also if they forget their account password they don’t have to ask you but they can reset it by themselves.

Optimal setup for freelance/contract developer RE: account, data source, "ownersip"