Now that you understand how to structure and manage your app's data, let's explore how to manage the end user's interaction with your app. In this module, we discuss how you can add behaviors to your app, using AppSheet actions. With AppSheet, you can control how users interact with your app and how your app behaves, by creating different types of actions. As an app creator, you create one or more actions for your app, in addition to the actions that you create. AppSheet automatically generates system actions, and applies these actions to your app, based on the structure of the data used by the app. In this module, we discuss how you can use AppSheet actions, to facilitate user interaction with the app and its data. We also review some advanced features that you can add to your app, to provide extra UI capabilities. In this module we will discuss AppSheet actions, AppSheet automation, offline sync, advanced UI behaviors and how to customize input forms. You will also do a couple of labs in this module, so let's get started. In this video, we'll first review what actions are, and review actions for app navigation and data changes. Before discussing actions for external communication and composite actions, so what are actions? In AppSheet, an action is an operation that changes the state or navigational behavior of the app. There are currently four categories of actions, app navigation actions, use this type of action to navigate the user to a new view within the app, or two of you in another app. Data change actions, use this type of action to add delete or update data that is used by the app. External communication actions, use this type of action to initiate communication with an external service. Composition or grouping actions, use this type of action to group existing actions in your app. Some actions are automatically created by AppSheet that you, the app creator can later modify, these actions are system defined and known as system actions. System actions are created by AppSheet, based on the column structure of a table that is used by your app, they represent the default behavior of the app. The most common examples of system actions, are row and column system actions. An example of this type of action is the email system action, that is automatically created, biopsied for any table with a column of type email. This is displayed as an email envelope icon, that is showed in an app view, when users click on it, the email app on the user's device is launched. Similarly, any lat long column in a table has a system generated, view map action, created for the table. When viewed in the app, each row from this table has a map pin icon next to it. When users click on the icon, it opens a map that shows the location of the column's value, plotted on the map. In most apps, there is no reason to ever modify system actions, they are designed to work correctly without the app creators intervention. However, there are instances where the app creator may want to control, when these actions can be invoked, or modify the action's display options. For example, in some cases, the app should not enable calling phone numbers, or you may want to change the icon shown for certain actions, etc. You can show or hide system actions, using the show action bar option, in the view options section of a view definition, and you can also add or remove actions that are shown in the bar. System actions can be edited with some limitations, only some of the properties of the action can be changed. Specifically the appearance properties and the behavior properties, that include the condition that determines when the action can be shown. If the table's column structure changes, the system will automatically delete and recreate system actions. Any changes to the system actions made by the app creator, will be lost and must be re-implemented. AppSheet supports various types of actions, these action types are categorized by app navigation, data changes, external communication, and composition. We will review each of these action types in detail in the next set of videos. To create an action, navigate to the actions tab in the absolute editor and click add new action. In the new action form, configure the action by providing the action name, the table to which the action applies, the type of action to perform, for example, a data action. Additional configuration based on the type of action, for example, the specified columns to set with their expressions or values. Appearance options. That include the action display name, icon and display prominence. You can also specify the following behaviors for an action, the condition to apply the action to only certain roles of the table, that satisfy the condition. Whether the confirmation is required from the app user before applying the action, a message that is displayed to the user, if user confirmation is required.
