Preparing your data in the right format

Before building a new app with AppSheet, the data source for your app needs to be in place. Throughout this book, we are using Google Sheets as the data source for our sample app and demonstration. To proceed, please make sure you have a spreadsheet for your own exercise to start to build your application, and ensure the data is stored in a tabular format. A tabular format is simply information presented in the form of a table with rows and columns, where the first row at the top always represents the name of columns and each row represents a subset of the data. A quick way to see whether your data is in a tabular format is to check whether a new subset of the data will be appended at the last row as a new record, instead of being added as a new column.

Figure 2.1 – Monthly income and cost table in a tabular format

Figure 2.1 is an example table, presenting the monthly income and cost for a company in simplified...