Sheetward User Guide

Creating an appStart here

You never build an app screen by screen — you pick a starting point and Sheetward does the building. On the My Apps page, workspace admins and builders see a New App tile. The first step asks one question — How would you like to create your app? — and offers three choices side by side:

• Use a Specification Workbook — you already have a workbook that describes your app. Press Browse File to pick it (.xlsx / .ods) from your computer, or drag and drop it anywhere on the card. Sheetward reads .xlsx files only; if yours is an older .xls, open it in Excel and use File → Save As → Excel Workbook (.xlsx) first. If Google integration is enabled, Create from Google Sheet takes one straight from your Drive instead (see Google Sheets).
• Create with AI — describe the app you want in plain language, and Sheetward drafts the specification workbook for you to review before anything is built (see Draft with AI).

The middle card, Start from a template, opens the Template Library — curated starter workbooks you can preview and build from. Starting the workbook or AI path dims the other, so you always know which one you are on; cancel the AI panel to return to the workbook card. The sheet-naming guide sits below all three, because it applies either way.

Before anything is created, Sheetward checks your workbook and shows you what it found — so surprises appear on screen, not in your finished app. A problem that would stop a working app — no Form_ sheet, a blank form, no readable fields, a repeated or lower-case section banner, or a line-items table above its header — is explained in red; fix the spreadsheet and upload again. Everything else arrives as one of two advisory lists. Worth checking holds the judgement calls: a block Sheetward read as label-and-value pairs, a data type it didn't recognize, two labels that produce the same internal name. These are in your app, so glance through them before you rely on it. Left out of the app holds what Sheetward couldn't use at all — a lookup, rule or formula it couldn't read, or a sheet it didn't recognize — and the app is created without them.

Each sheet in your workbook gets its own card: its name, what Sheetward read it as, and how many rows it holds. The card previews only the first few rows. Select the row count to open the whole sheet as Sheetward read it — with your workbook's own row numbers and column letters — so you can compare what it saw with what you wrote. Very long or very wide sheets open up to a limit, and the view tells you how much it left out.

The Configure Your App step is where you name the app and set two things that apply to everyone who uses it. App languages comes first: the additional languages this app offers, chosen from the ones your workspace has enabled. Form design — the record-form look and field layout — sits below it. Selecting a language does not translate anything. It decides which languages the app offers; you maintain the wording yourself in the App Specification workbook, in the Translation_ sheet and the language columns of your List_ sheets. If English is the only language your workspace has enabled, App languages doesn't appear. A Category picker (shown when your operator has configured categories) files the app under a business function in My Apps; Change app can adjust it later.

Try the forms before anything is created. On the Configure Your App step, Preview App opens the real form — fill in fields, pick from dropdowns, add line rows — rendered in your chosen Form style and layout. Nothing you enter is saved. Close the preview, adjust the style or layout, and preview again until it feels right; then press Create App.

Your app isn't frozen once it exists. To update it later, use the Change (↻) icon on its card. The dialog works through numbered sections: 1 App details (name and description), 2 App languages, 3 Form design, and 4 Workbook, which is optional. Edit the first sections and save; open section 4 only when you want to replace the specification the app was built from. Sections you can't use are left out — App languages is missing if your workspace only has English — and the numbering closes up, so it always reads 1, 2, 3 in order.

Section 4 offers three sources, shown as cards: Pick an updated workbook (.xlsx / .ods) — press Browse File, or drag and drop the workbook straight onto the card — Pick from Google Sheet, and Revise with AI. Only one can be in play at a time: starting one dims the others, and backing out brings them back.