Can I speed up by splitting a big Google Sheet with multiple tables into 2 or more smaller sheets?

[Ricky_Chua]

Hi everyone. I'm using Google Sheets for my database and it has 32 tables, of which the largest 2 tables have 18,000 and 4,000 rows respectively. The remaining 30 tables range from 1,000 rows or so down to only 20 rows.

Appsheet is REALLY slowing down and my team members are chewing me up everyday because sync times are taking so long. FYI I have already removed all expensive virtual columns calculations. 

I have been wondering whether AppSheet slows down because it processes the entire Google Spreadsheet (all 32 tables)? If I extract my table containing 18,000 rows into its own Spreadsheet file, would that speed things up (isolated files are each lighter), or will it slow things down more (more back and forth between two isolated files)? Apologies that I am not more articulate with the correct vocabulary. I'm not IT-trained, just doing what I can for the company. Thank you for your inputs!

[ThisIsIdrees]

Interested 

[AleksiAlkio]

What is the approx. sync time at this moment?

[Ricky_Chua]

Sync time is about 15 secs on average. I have no benchmark to compare against. Is 15 secs terrible or decent?

[AleksiAlkio]

It's not a huge. What AppSheet subscrition do you have?

[Ricky_Chua]

We have AppSheet Core subscription. Does the subscription type affect speed?

[AleksiAlkio]

Yes, the subscription has an affect how many tables the app can read on parallel. If I remember, with the Core it's 3 and Enterprise 10. When using gSheet as a data source, the whole source file needs to rbe ead first to AS server before the data can be filtered with the security filter. If all tables are in one gSheet, it won't benefit with the Delta sync option either. So.. using separate gSheets with your biggest tables and using the Delta sync, it could decrease the sync time. Read more from https://support.google.com/appsheet/answer/10104985?hl=en&sjid=8417177900414604326-EU#:~:text=enable...

But in generally, few things to think about.
#1 - Are you able to filter the data with the security filter. Though the app will still need to read the whole gSheet but you can reduce the data amount that is sent to device.
#2 - Please check that you don't have any additional sheets in your gSheet that the app is not using.
#3 - Check that you don't have sheet formulas in your gSheet as the app needs to wait the recalculation every time the app syncs.
#4 - Then next option is to use real DBs with your app so you could filter the data amount directly in the DB with SQL queries. Then it will send less data to AS server. Though then you need AppSheet's Enterprise subscription.