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CHRISTIAN SCHALK: Hello, and welcome back
to the Building With AppSheet series,
where I discuss building apps with AppSheet and Google
technologies.
I'm Christian Schalk, a Google Developer advocate,
and in this episode, we'll demonstrate
the new dynamic email capability in AppSheet.
What is AppSheet Dynamic Email?
Put simply, it brings the power of no-code apps
to Gmail, meaning you never have to leave
Gmail to interact with an app.
Here are some key details on AppSheet's Dynamic Email
capability.
In short, it works by allowing you to easily send
AppSheet forms or views to Gmail users
with embedded and editable data fields.
This allows users to interact with live data
directly from Gmail.
Current data is actually fetched from an app's underlying data
source when an email is opened.
Once opened, users can edit and submit data chains
while in the email view, which is then
written back to the app's data source,
all without leaving Gmail.
Here's how to use AppSheet Dynamic Email.
First, if you haven't done so already,
toggle the Preview New Features option under UX Options,
and this will enable Dynamic Email.
Once enabled, you could then create a new automation
to send an email when a new record is created.
In the Send An Email Properties Editor on the right,
select either a detail form or view in the Use Dynamic Email
dropdown option.
Note, there are some small differences
in behavior between the form and the detail view
when viewed in Gmail.
For example, a form view will provide a submit button
in the email body, whereas a detail view auto-saves any data
updates automatically in the email.
Finally, set the remaining email options as you would
with any email automation, including the to,
subject, body and so on.
To see dynamic email in action, let's switch to a demo.
OK, for my first dynamic email demo,
I'm starting off with a simple task
tracking spreadsheet here, which I've
used in my previous videos, and I've
generated a very simple application,
which is just using the same columns in the app.
And I've done some minor modifications
where I set up the status to be in type Enum,
and I have some distinct values that I wanted.
I've also specified that I want buttons as the input mode.
All right, so now we can go ahead
and create an automation that will trigger
whenever a record is added.
So that's when I want to send a dynamic email.
So to do that, let's click on New Bot.
And then I'm going to accept this first suggestion.
When a new task record is created, send an email.
So that's exactly what I want.
Let's click on the Send An Email option here,
and then I'll just go over to the Property
Editor on the right.
And I can specify that I want to use the Dynamic Email Feature.
And I'll select the Basic Form.
That's the auto-generated form that you
get when you click on-- to edit a record,
so that's the form that gets sent to Gmail.
And now I just finish off by adding a field for the
to in the email.
So in this case, I can just say that I want the user email,
and then that will be who's going to receive the email.
In a real application, it would be fetching probably
from an approver's column, right?
And then maybe I can just put in another value
here for the email body.
But that's basically it.
I don't really need to do anything else.
OK, now let's click on the mobile preview,
and there we go.
So to fire off the automation, all I have to do
is add a new record.
So I can say, "Do a demo!"
And we have a due date, which is five days into the future,
but maybe I want to bump that up to a later date.
And I'll click Save.
Now, let's switch over to Gmail.
And there we go.
We have our email.
We can open that up.
And as you can see, we have the fetched form
in the body of the email, so now we can actually update it.
So if I wanted to change some values here, I can do that.
And I'll click Submit.
And we can go back to our source sheet,
and we can see that we have the updated values in our sheet,
as well as the app itself will be updated.
So I can click on that and refresh
to pull the latest values.
And there we go.
Everything has been updated.
So for my next Dynamic Emails demo,
I'm starting with a slightly more advanced sheet,
which is essentially like a projects tracking app.
And so in a similar fashion, I've
generated a default app that has the same columns that we
see in the spreadsheet, and in a similar fashion,
I have the same Enum setup where I
have some other different values set up.
And I also specify buttons.
So it's basically the same app but with a few more columns,
and so I'm using this to show the slightly nuanced behaviors
in a more advanced app, all right?
So in order to set up a dynamic email,
as before, I'm going to create a New Bot.
I'll accept this first suggestion.
So when a new project record is created, let's send an email.
And I'll open up the Send An Email option here.
And in this case, instead of selecting a form,
I'm going to select the detail And so this
is actually going to send a detail view to the Gmail user.
Now, incidentally, because a detail view doesn't necessarily
come with a Submit button, what I've done here
is I've actually modified my detail view
to have these quick edit columns, so Status, Due
Date, and Note.
That way, I don't have to click on a Submi button.
I can actually just edit them directly
into the app, all right?
So let's run back over to the automation,
and I have my detail selected.
And then as before, I can just use the same expression
that I've used for the other demo.
And let's do the same thing.
"Please review!"
And I'll leave everything else as is.
OK, so here's the app.
Now, let's go ahead and insert a new record.
"Do a new Project!!"
And I'll just put a link here.
And I'm going to send an image as well.
So here, I can just select something for fun.
So we have a construction project.
I can also upload an attachment.
So I happen to have a document there that I can specify.
And as before, maybe I'm going to set
a slightly different due date, and that's basically it.
Click Save.
Then I'll go back to my Gmail.
And there we go.
We have our new project record that got created,
and now we can see the body of the email
has a more interesting view.
We have the image.
We have the links, and we can also
see that we have a PDF file.
And as before, maybe I can do an update as well.
So maybe I'll bump that up a bit.
Maybe I can put in, indeed, more info and say,
"Please provide budget info!"
So anyway, so this is just an example of a slightly more
advanced dynamic email.
And as you can see, it's saving, so now we can go back
to the actual source sheet.
And there we go.
We have our new record.
And we can see the new values, as well as
like my note that I added, OK?
This concludes the AppSheet Dynamic Email episode.
Stay tuned for more coverage of this important capability
in future episodes, and for more info on AppSheet,
Google Cloud and Google Workspace,
check out the links in the description below.
And for more videos like this, make
sure you subscribe to this series so you don't miss out.
As always, thanks for watching.
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