Saving file as Google Doc

Steve_Chambers · 01-16-2021 12:15 AM

Hi all,

I’m new to Appsheet and have been working my way through the documentation and believe that want i want to do is not currently possible, but wanted to check to make sure.

I am building an invoicing system and one of the required processes requires the client to use a google Doc template to create ‘order confirmation files’.

Due to the nature of this clients customized orders he needs to be able to do the following,

A) Populate a google doc template with information from 3 different google sheet tables,

B) be able to save that (now) populated template back as a google doc to his G-suite cloud drive so that he may,

C) manually add in expanded item information (such as text and pictures) into the (now) populated google doc template so that he can,

D) manually download as a PDF, attach to emails and send to customers.

I have have been writing the code for this function in appscript, so i know it is possible there.
Any appsheeters know if this is currently possible?

Regards,
Steve

khuslid

Not sure I understood. You can do the whole job in appsheet, and generate any kind of pdf or sheet. You can later add data and update info on a new pdf or replace the former pdf.
But why do you want to work in Google doc? Can’t you give him access as a user in Appsheet?

Steve_Chambers

Hi Kristofer,

Can’t you give him access as a user in Appsheet?

yes i plan on deploying the app in secure mode with the client as a user (with a premium licence to keep costs down, so trying to avoid scheduled reports and webhooks in this process)

But why do you want to work in Google doc?

Here is a sample of the template (not set up yet for appsheet) but as you can see there are 4 sections to the doc,

Cover Letter
Customer Details
Order Summary
Product Details

I’m trying to build a function that automates populating the first 3 sections and then saves that populated temp file into a g-suite variable drive folder and then logs that temp doc url back into a spreadsheet

So the client can click the link, have the doc load in a new tab and manually enter the info for section 4

You can later add data and update info on a new pdf

I’m new to PDFs thanks for that! I just tried it then, saving the template doc as a PDF destroys the formatting, but perhaps i can follow formatting rules outlined here and avoid using tables and this process can be done inside appsheet

Thanks for the tip I’ll keep playing!

Steve_Chambers

After further research and fiddling around it appears google docs cannot retain the doc format once it converts to PDF and back again, hence a 2 step process of completing a template is effectively impossible at least if you want any type of formatting.

I suppose i could get the user to do the manual step first but this would almost certainly add extra steps to the printing process, whereby the user would need to stipulate the temp file they have setup.

At this stage i’m afraid i don’t know what i don’t know, i’ll go ahead and finish the coding for this with appscript and perhaps once i’m more familiar with appsheet there will be a way to integrate an appscript trigger with appsheet. I’m obviously trying to keep the user experience 100% inside appsheet

khuslid

Look here:

You can make a pdf with different sections (tables or slices) and get the result you want.
The template can have the formatting you want (even change format based on rules and expressions).

Best of luck!

Steve_Chambers

thanks again Kris I’ll keep looking!

Steve

AppSheet cannot produce Google Doc files.