New AppSheet Core security setting rolling out (info for app creators and Workspace admins)

[peterdykstra]

AppSheet Core is in the process of being included in Workspace SKUs (learn more here). 

UPDATE: the rollout of the Core Security Setting has been slightly delayed, but will resume in September after Google Cloud Next. The setting may have been briefly available for some Workspace admins - it will return when the rollout resumes.

As part of this rollout, a new AppSheet Core Security Setting is being made available to Workspace admins. This setting will apply to all AppSheet Core users in their Workspace org, (including those who bought their own licenses on appsheet.com).

When turned ON for a Workspace organization, these features will be disabled for apps owned by AppSheet Core users.  

This setting will be defaulted to OFF for organizations with existing active AppSheet apps.

For app creators: If you are experiencing broken apps with error messages starting with "Workspace AppSheet Core security violation", please remove the disabled features from your app(s) or contact your Workspace admin and ask them to turn off the AppSheet Core Security Setting.

For Workspace admins: If you hear feedback from your users experiencing unexpected issues with their apps related to this update, visit the Workspace Admin Console to adjust the AppSheet Core security setting.

Please reference this article to learn more about how AppSheet Core is included in your Workspace organization.

[QREW_Ben]

We have two clients who are experiencing this error, each of them have checked this setting, and both of them are off. Are there any steps we need to follow when the error persists even though it is off? One was already off when we checked so it was probably defaulted to off like you said, the other was on and we turned it off, but persists afer we have waited. 

Update: Both clients had legacy licencing agreements that allowed them to use enterprise level features. When this rolled out they both lost their enterprise level features instantly, breaking all of their apps, and got this security violation instead of a lisencing/feature error which caused this confusion. We have asked both of them to reach out to their AppSheet sales rep/contact for further help.

[ccchen_google]

After they filed support request, can you also DM me their AppSheet account ID and I'll ask the engineering team to take a look.

Thanks!

[Robert_Easter]

Peter, Thank you for this because I have had the issue twice now. Seems  in my domain of one the off setting keeps getting turned "ON"

Could you please Write out  the admin Menu  to get to thi panel because I have tried to back into the admin panel from your link and I can't but when I use your Link in your post above that goes to this when copy pasted  https://admin.google.com/ac/managedsettings/147040234288 It will go to it  directly on resigning in Thanks for any assistance

[pwmurray]

We turned off core security and all apps are still not working.  Escalated with Google Support

[ccchen_google]

Please wait for the "Your apps and databases are subject to AppSheet Core security setting managed by your Workspace admin" message to disappear from your account policy page: 
https://www.appsheet.com/admin/policies/account . (This may take a few minutes to take effect.)

Once the message disappears, if your apps are still having the Core security violations, please make some minor changes to the apps and save it (e.g., update app description) to trigger the policy reevaluation, which should force the policy violation cache to be cleaned up. Otherwise, in 15-30 mins, the policy violation cache should expire by itself and your apps should return to normal operation.

If the issue persists, please feel free to DM me your AppSheet account ID and I'll ask the engineering team to take a look.

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience.

[QREW_Ben]

Both of our clients are up an running this morning. Thanks for all of the work.

[JPAlpano]

@peterdykstra 

Since our Admin opted to activate Core Security, Google Data Studio/Looker Studio lost its ability to connect directly to the Appsheet app.

It seems that AppSheet Core Security is detecting Looker Studio as an external application that is not Part of our Google Worksuite.

We had to revert to connecting directly to the underlying GoogleSheet, which lost our ability to use virtual columns as fileds in the Looker Studio charts.

[JPAlpano]

Reporting to you that as of today,  these issues are happening due to the Core Security Settings turned on:

1. Looker Studio (Data Studio) unable to connect to AppSheet apps directly.   
   It seems that AppSheet is seeing Looker Studio as an external connection instead of an internal connection.   If the Core Security Settings do not see Google Sheets as external when adding Google Sheets as a datasource, then AppSheet team should be able to do the same for Looker Studio.  If Looker Studio can connect to Google Sheets without any issues, then AppSheet team should be able to allow Looker Studio to connect to apps directly as well, even when Core Security Settings are turned on.
2. AppSheet bots does not get triggered on new Google Form submissions when Google Forms are added as a data source.
   It seems that AppSheet is seeing Google Form as an external connection instead of internal from Google.  If the Core Security Settings do not see Google Sheets and Google Forms as external when adding Sheets and Forms as a datasource, then AppSheet team should be able to do the same for Google Form submissions in the automation bots.
3. AppSheet bots does not get triggered on Google Sheet changes using the AppSheet Events Add-on for Google Sheets.
   It seems that AppSheet is seeing the API call from the AppSheet Events Add-on as external instead of internal from Google.  If the Core Security Settings do not see Google Sheets as external when adding Sheets as a datasource, then AppSheet team should be able to do the same for the AppSheet Events add-on for Google Sheets.

@peterdykstra @ccchen_google 

[ccchen_google]

@JPAlpano 

My sincere apologies for the inferior user experience and for taking us this long to fix the issue. The AppSheet engineering team has identified the root cause and has a fix to all these (Looker integration, Forms trigger, and Sheets trigger) that will be rolling out starting the next week.

In the meantime, if any of you would like to be included in the rollout asap, please DM me your AppSheet user ID and I'm happy to fast-track your apps in the rollout.

Apologies again and thank you for reporting the issue and your patience while the engineering time was working on the fix.