Plan requirement oddness - emailing a report vs just creating a report

[TedM]

I have an existing app that emails a [PDF] report when a new data is added - all great and works very well.  I have this deployed on a starter plan.

I have just added a new bot to the app that, rather than create a report and email it to someone, it just creates the report and saves it rather than emailing it - there is no other difference.
Yet when I run a deployment check on the app it now says that it cannot be run with a Starter Plan as document creation isn't supported and that it requires a Core Plan.

Huh?  It's doing the same thing (less actually)!!
If I change the new bot to 'Send an Email' [rather than Create a New File] with the report as an attachment the deployment check says I can run it with a Starter Plan.

Makes no sense unless I'm missing something!

[1minManager]

Nope, there's various useful things that aren't allowed on the Starter licences.  If your dead against upgrading the appsheet licences then your options are:

• Treat your inbox as storage
• Send the email to a Gmail address then use Zapier to put the attachment into Google Drive (chargeable)
• As above but use Google Apps Script.  MUCH more complicated, but no ongoing charge AFAIK 

Simon, 1minManager

BTW, thats not the worst of it - https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/AppSheet-Q-A/Appsheet-Billing-is-unscrupulous/m-p/253941#M34...

[TedM]

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@1minManager wrote:

Send the email to a Gmail address then use Zapier to put the attachment into Google Drive (chargeable)

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That's actually not required as an email attachment can be attached and then archived - what i'd puzzled by is the fact that:

Create a PDF, email and archive it: $
Create a PDF and just archive it: $$

I presume it's because creating a file can also create other file types.

[1minManager]

Don't look for any logic in the way appsheet prices licences 😂  Its the same thing with ReadOnly tables.  You'd assume they'd want to avoid reading tables that we know will never update.  Yet if you set one to read only, unless you have an Enterprise Licence, it will still read it every 5mins.  So basically every sync... like all your other tables that aren't "read only" 🤔

So yeah, in that case, just choose email and archive.  If you need to, make it send to a BS email address.  Appsheet will be happy with aaaaaaaaaaaaa@bbbbbbbbbbbbb.com