I would appreciate your insights on a setup involving mixed authentication and data source providers.
Our Setup:
Developer Environment: The app is built with a Google account.
Data Source: All data is in Google Sheets, and related files (images, PDFs, etc.) are stored in Google Drive.
End-Users: Our users need to sign in with non-Google accounts (e.g., Microsoft, Dropbox, etc.).
In a situation like this, where the user’s authentication provider is different from the data source’s provider (Google), what potential problems or challenges could arise?
We are looking for any advice on potential pitfalls, required configurations, or licensing considerations we should be aware of. Any insights you can share would be very helpful.
In my experience, I’ve noticed at least one limitation when using mixed authentication providers. For example, in an app we use to send approval requests by email, the emails are sent as dynamic emails — basically an embedded AppSheet view inside the message, with “approve” and “reject” buttons.
This works perfectly when the users are Google accounts, as they can interact directly with the embedded buttons. However, for external users (e.g., Microsoft, Dropbox, etc.), instead of seeing the interactive buttons inside the email, they only receive an invitation to open the app in the browser or mobile app. In other words, non-Google users need to take an extra step to complete the approval.
Another small challenge I’ve seen is that some users get confused because they register accounts in one environment but use credentials from another (for example, signing in to Microsoft with a @gmail account or accessing Google tools with an @outlook address). This can cause login confusion since they don’t always know which ecosystem they’re authenticating against.
Other than that, I haven’t encountered major issues. If anyone knows whether it’s possible to enable dynamic emails in Outlook (similar to how it works in Gmail), that would be really helpful to know.
