About the AppSheet Automation channel

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
1

Welcome to the AppSheet Process Automation channel!

The objective of this channel is for creators to collaborate (community style) with other participants to provide feedback (i.e. identify bugs, make feature requests) in order to drive product improvements in AppSheet Automation.

Rules of Engagement:

  • Please provide cordial and respectful feedback
  • Optional: Read the optional Primer for in-depth information. The Primer also highlights the use cases to test. We’ve included test data below if you’d like to follow along.
  • Refrain from sharing any personal identifiable information

AppSheet Automation - GA Release Primer-min-compressed.pdf (3.1 MB)

Additional support documentation can be found in the automation section of help.appsheet.com

Additional helpful posts:

[What features are in the Preview release?](https://community.appsheet.com/t/what-features-are-in-the-preview-release/39434) AppSheet Automation

Powerful, modular automation constructs Bots, Events & Processes [image] Flexible Steps [image] Versatile Tasks [image] Tasks, Events, Processes are modular and can be reused across multiple bots Intent-Aware authoring Powered by Google AI, Natural Language Processing Suggestions for Bots, Events & Processes Intelligent Document Processing Auto extraction of documents powered by Document AI Supported documents - Invoices, Receipts & W9 forms [|464.60950764006793…

[Document Processing - Folder as a Table](https://community.appsheet.com/t/document-processing-folder-as-a-table/39282) AppSheet Automation

Automation- DocProcessing-FolderAsATableExample.zip (405.9 KB) Sample assets for trying out Folder as a Table feature of Document Processing.

[Sample invoices](https://community.appsheet.com/t/sample-invoices/38761) AppSheet Automation

01-14-2021-1001-MODEM-6-Golden-Leaf-Trail-New-York-NY-10024.pdf (83.6 KB) 7-27-2020-1001-MODEM-123-ABC-St-New-York-NY-10024 (1).pdf (56.1 KB) 7-31-2020-1005-SWITCH-919-Melody-Street-New-York-NY-10024 (1).pdf (56.0 KB) 8-1-2020-1006-ROUTER-6-Golden-Leaf-Trail-New-York-NY-10024.pdf (84.0 KB)

[What's your experience with the AppSheet Automation design?](https://community.appsheet.com/t/whats-your-experience-with-the-appsheet-automation-design/34620) AppSheet Automation

What’s your experience with the AppSheet Automation design? How easy/difficult is it to create a bot? We would love to get feedback on your experience.

4 Likes
2

Hi there,
Happy to see that new features are coming! I hope this will extend the reach of apps that we can make with appSheet!

I tried the new Automation module and I have some questions / remarks :

  • automation seem to happen in the server, not in the user device, so there is a delay in the UI which is not acceptable for many use cases (ex : planning with tasks shift). Is there a way to make automation run in real time on the user device?

  • it looks like the new module uses the “old” actions mechanism, so to be honest I dont really see the difference with these features. I am not able to do more with automation than with actions…

maybe it’s because I did not fully understand the features of automation?

thanks for help!

2 Likes
3

Thanks for trying out the new automation features. Automation is targeted for “server” use cases primarily to support external data change events. Additionally it can also run on a schedule. There are no current plans to support user device based use cases. We may look into it for future releases.

Regarding “old” actions - Assuming you got a chance to read the primer we posted with the announcement. There are some key additions beyond what you get in workflow rules:

  1. Support for “external” data change events - eg: executing a process based on data changes is Sheets or Salesforce
  2. Wait step - Helps you provide support for use cases that require to do state management. For eg: Don’t execute the next steps till a supervisor approves a certain record.
  3. Process to process invocation - Create processes and use them in other processes and bots. This modularity provides reuse that can save time.
  4. New “Grouped:” action - This allows you to trigger one or more processes from an app view using the action mechanism.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

3 Likes
4

Invoice automation works like charm love it. What about purchase order automation any chance that this will be added.

1 Like
5

Great to know @Francios. No current ETA on support for purchase orders, but will add it to our backlog for now. @Philip_Stephens FYI

1 Like
6

Thanks for answering prithpal!
I definitely need some way to make user interface more interactive in real time…
I hope something like this will come in the future

1 Like
7

Excellente es lo mejor que estoy experimentando

8

Hi has anyone noticed a slight delay when the automation delivers an email? Wasn’t there a couple of days ago just noticed it today?