Functions (CHAR) and UI Options (Group By, Sort By) are Missing from Editor

AppSheet AppSheet Q&A
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Hi AppSheet Community,

I am building a commodity tracking app (First help) and have run into a strange issue where my app editor appears to be missing several standard functions and UI options. I qm hoping someone can help me understand why this might be happening.

My Goal:

  1. Create a bar chart that shows a count of commodity re-order, grouped by month.

  2. Create a “Send Email” quick action with a properly formatted, multi-line email body.

Summary of the Problem: Fundamental UI options like Group by and Sort by are consistently missing from the chart and slice configuration screens. Furthermore, the standard CHAR() text function is not found by the expression editor, which is preventing me from creating a multi-line mailto: link.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

I have been working to debug this for a while and have tried the following without success:

1. For the Monthly Chart:

  • Tried using a col series chart, but the Group by option is not visible in the view settings.

  • Tried using a Histogram chart, but the Column Grouping option does not appear, even when the column type is correctly set to Date.

  • Created a virtual column to format the date as text (YYYY-MM), but the Sort by option is missing in the Histogram settings, so the months appear out of order.

  • Attempted to pre-sort the data by creating a Slice, but the Sort by option is also missing from the Slice configuration screen.

2. For the “Send Email” Action:

  • Tried creating a multi-line string in the Email Body, but this gives an “Unterminated string” error.

  • Tried using \n for newlines, but this creates a broken URL with %5Cn.

  • Tried using "%0D%0A", but this results in a double-encoded URL with %250D%250A.

  • Tried using the standard CHAR(10) function to create a newline, but the editor returns the error: “Unable to find function ‘CHAR’, did you mean ‘YEAR’?”

My Questions:

  1. Can anyone help me understand why these fundamental features might be missing from my app editor?

  2. Is this related to a specific account type, a known bug, or something else in my app’s configuration?

  3. What steps can I take to restore this standard functionality?

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

2

AppSheet’s charting engine is basic and you may find more limitations in AppSheet native charting capabilities as you explore. For more advanced capabilities you could use other charting tools that are available ( of course by evaluating fitment for your organization policies etc.) You could even try to use options such as Looker Studio or Google sheets charts with GAS. Each of these options will have their own plus and minus points.
Please search Tips and Tricks section with keywords such as "Charts , graphs "for several tips on charting options.

You could use line break something like below
Please note ," at the end of each line and ", at the start of each line.

CONCATENATE(“Hi “, [Customer Name],”,” , "
“, “Your order details are as follows”, "
" ,“Order No: “, [Order Id],”,”,”
“, “Total Cost:”, [Total Cost],”,“,”
", "Delivery Date: ", [Delivery Date])

The output in email body would look like below

image
image838×567 25.8 KB

3 Likes
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CHAR() has never existed in AppSheet.

2 Likes
4

Thanks. I got it working with explicit spacing.

2 Likes
5

Got to know. Thanks.

1 Like