Does GoCanvas have the ability to 'export' and app to see all the fields that are in it (along with any setting for those fields), the choices for those fields, if they trigger and/or are triggered by a field condition (and what those conditions are)? Being able to basically unpack the choose your own adventure of an app in GC would just really make it better to understand more complicated apps as a whole not just as an app designed who has to vision everything in his head but also to explain to the people actually using the app.
The only way that I could think to get a "paper" version of an app is to go through as many iterations of the app based on all of the different possible combinations of choices and page/field conditions. And I'm sure most people don't have time for that.
Also, being able to view the app as xml is not user friendly to worker folks that need to explain this boss folks (https://help.gocanvas.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360015593314-Facility-to-export-edit-and-import-app-designs-in-a-textual-format-suitable-for-inclusion-in-version-control?input_string=Export%20Flow%2FStoryboard%20of%20Apps).
Comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Hi John,
Thanks for all of your thoughtful feedback. The closest way I could think of to do this is to use the PDF preview (in the quick links section of the App Settings page on each individual App), which obviously doesn't show all of the logic, or the dispatch creator, which has similar limitations. This would certainly help our Support Team out tremendously as well, and really anyone trying to troubleshoot things.
Very interesting request!
Yes.. testing apps and trying out every possible scenario is very tedious and time consuming. 120 app versions later, users still find conditional branching scenarios that don't work correctly...
I just counted. My longest app for damage assessments was approximately 80 required/possible pages with looping loop screens and certainly several hundred possible questions. If I had it to do over again, I could probably get it down to 50 by "reusing" questions, but the setup I used just made it easier to keep it all straight in my head.
It's a "Juggernaut" app! LOL I feel you man! and every field has 5 conditional branches right?.. I impress myself sometimes when I go back and look at some of the humongous apps that I built; and the users don't appreciate what is going on in the background of these things. All you get is the complaints when it doesn't work right. I started this whole thing with GoCanvas to make my day to day easier but it's turned into a second unpaid full-time job for me on top of my other 6 full time jobs. Put me in the K.I.S.S. category.. "Keep it simple stupid" and break things into as many bite size pieces as possible is what I do now.
https://help.gocanvas.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360001898313-Flowchart-View-in-App-Designer