Worksheets, Tables, Workbooks, and why multiple Workbooks and Worksheets

[Former Community Member]

Hello!

If someone could tell me if I'm on the right path or not. . . would appreciate it very much.

Thank you!

If I understand AppSheet correctly,

Worksheet = “a spreadsheet that contains cells organized in rows and columns.” 

So in other words, worksheet is a spreadsheet organized specifically for AppSheet to read & write.

Table = “a single dataset used by Appsheet.” 

So basically a single page of a worksheet (so if you have two tabs in a spreadsheet that’s organized as a worksheet, that’s 2 tables.)

Workbook = “the file that contains one or more worksheets.”

So basically the folder that Appsheet creates for you when you copy an app template to your Google Drive.

So When they say, 

“You can add multiple standalone spreadsheet files as AppSheet tables.”

It implies, it is possible to get information from a worksheet in a different workbook created for a different app. 

“It’s also possible to create AppSheet tables from different worksheets within the same workbook.”

and the reason you would do this is because,

“The AppSheet backend has to download the entire spreadsheet file.” 

if you have a lot of data, it takes time.

“but if the same file (workbook) is referenced multiple times (via several tables referencing individual worksheets in the workbook),  the backend will download it just once.” 

So no matter the number of referencing points, it’ll download the entire spreadsheet once.

“On the other hand, multiple small files can be fetched and processed efficiently in parallel.” 

So single spreadsheet or multiple worksheet basically depends if you have more data, or more referencing points.

If I’m getting this all wrong, someone please correct me!

If I’m somewhat correct is there a way for AppSheet to tell that my data outweighs the number of referencing points so you’re better off creating multiple worksheets or vice versa?