Want to create an App in which it prompts users to do several things

Question

Hi everyone,

I am attempting to get a few things to prompt users to make a few changes to a workflow before running:

* Change the folder path of the input
* Change the number in the formula for workday of the month
* Update output folder path in a formula
* Update folder path for output

Any help would be appreciated, I am assuming this is simple but have no app experience(:

phottovy · Accepted Answer

Hi @nickrosen28 ,

You already have the hard part done. The first step to creating an app is to build out a workflow. From there, you just need to add "interface" tools to update some of the values on that original workflow. I have attached a simplified workflow/app that shows you how to update the items you requests:

The first two action tools are pretty straight forward. The first one will update the directory in the "Directory" tool to the one that the user selects.

The second will change the value in the formula from 5 to whatever number the user selects:

The third one is very similar to the other action tools, but I am using the "Replace a specific string" option at the bottom of the configuration window:

The difference here is that the action tool will only replace the word Placeholder in the formula instead of overwriting the entire formula.

Finally, I didn't use an action tool for the output. Instead, I used the option to "Take File/Table Name From Field" option in the output tool to use the value from the previous formula tool as the file path/filename:

Building apps can be intimidating at first but they get easier over time. One thing I recommend using is the "Interface Designer" and its built in debug feature.

From here, you can use the "Test View" screen to plug in different values to your app:

Then, if you click "Open Debug" on the right side, a new workflow will open up showing you exactly what your new workflow will look like with those values selected. For example, in the new debug version of the workflow, if you click on the first formula tool, you will now see that the workday has been updated to 9:

For me, the debug view takes a lot of the guess work out of building your app since you can how the workflow will run based on the different values selected by the user.

I know this is a lot to take in but hopefully it helps you get started with app building!