Websheets?

Question

Hi,
We've been taking a look at the new websheets in Apex 4 but I'm not really clear on the intention of these.
What is the intended audience? What sort of applications is the tool intended to build?
Its great that users have the ability to create data grids and build an interactive report on a table but surely it wont take long before the user will need to understand SQL in order to build any sort of useful reports which seems a bit advanced for more of an end user kind of role? It seems that this would be excellent for building a simple application around a single table but in my opinion this is a fairly unlikely scenario.
Does anybody have any valid business cases that they would use websheets for, or can anybody help me understand the intention of the websheets functionality?
Thanks very miuch.

Answer 1

This is a very interesting thread, here is some additional background.
Business Requirement: My division uses spreadsheets all the time, and its really inefficient; multiple conflicting copies of the spreadsheet are emailed; data collection frequently requires merging of many spreadsheets. Enforcing consistent data values is hard; some users enter "Y", others "Yes" etc. You say Oracle APEX can allow spreadsheet data to be shared on the web / intranet, but it's not that easy, even a simple application requires a level of programming thats too much for the typical "business user". First simply managing the data objects is hard, for example adding columns to tables, writing a group by SQL query, writing a trigger to populate a key, etc. Developing a form in APEX is also hard, their are so many properties its just way too confusing for the "casual user".
Websheet Datagrids: An analogy to Adobe photoshop works at some level; Photoshop is an amazing tool, but it's a professional tool with allot of knobs. If you don't want to learn photoshop but want to crop, add contrast, and remove red-eyes from your photos; well photoshop elements is all you need. So a websheet simplifies the task developing (and refinement) of a data tracking application; at least to the level of a simple data collection spreadsheet. The websheet datagrid allows you to share a simple data structure on the web. You can create a websheet in just a few minutes and it provides you with a wealth of feature function:
- Multi and single row view with edit capabilities in multi and single row
- Ability to define lists of values to restrict data values; works in both report view and single row view
- Automatic tracking of changes, so its clear who made what change when
- Ability to annotate a row with a files, notes, and tags; w/ corresponding pseudo-columns to expose these in report view
- Full interactive report capabilities, with row highlighting, charting, group by capability, aggregates etc
- Ability to specify basic data validations
- Ability to expose help text at the column level to make it clear what the purpose is for columns
- Basic Access Control, so it can be shared read only, or read write
- Ability to group attributes / columns into regions in the single row view
So now I have described Websheets as a fusion of a basic database form and report; and a spreadsheet, with attributes of both. So you get a form and a report on a table, that can be developed without writing SQL, without large complex property sheets, in fact without being exposed to an application development tool. You get the feature function of a data collection spreadsheet, but you miss the spreadsheet formula's and the ability to populate a column of data by cutting one cell and pasting into many cells; so we can't really call it a spreadsheet replacement. You also miss the layout and HTML styling capabilities Oracle APEX forms has; so its a compromise; but you do get a powerful data collection tool.
Websheet Pages: Sharing a single websheet (aka simple web datagrid) lacks context (e.g. if I was to get a url to a datagrid what should I do, I would prefer to land on a page that tells me what to do); so the next part of the websheet vision was to add basic wiki capability. So websheets have "pages" which are similar to a wiki page in that you can use basic [[mypage]] markup syntax to link one page with another. So the goal of Websheet Pages is to exploit the power of a wiki by providing a workgroup a place to create pages of data (basically a shared word processor on the web with links; e.g. a wiki). These pages are intended to provide the core of a typical websheet application. The unique feature / innovation comes with the ability to integrate the datagrids (data management capabilities) with the websheet pages (adhoc web page authoring / wiki). A logical extension to the websheet page is the SQL tag, e.g. [[SQL: select ename, deptno from emp order by 1]] allowing the SQL savvy user to spice up a web page with SQL with a grid of data (previous example), or a single value, for example: "Currently we have [[SQLVALUE: select count(*) from emp where deptno=10]] employees in department 10.
Thus the vision of providing a no-programming-skills-required multi user web page authoring tool with data management and database integration capabilities. So a websheet application is very different from a traditional APEX application, here are some of the differences.
*Oracle APEX Database Application (Classic APEX)*:
- A developer builds and application and deploys it to users; users request enhancements / bug fixes, and developers redeploy improved applications; e.g. traditional application development / deployment
- Requires a SQL Savvy developer and some investment in learning basic APEX programming concepts; page layout, regions, templates, branches, processes, session state concepts (e.g. referencing item values in SQL queries).
- Similar to other application development frameworks (php, jsp, ...) in that applications are developed and deployed; basically a formal application
*Oracle APEX Websheet*:
- No (or limited) distinction between end users and developers; end users develop web page content and manage data in datagrids.
- No exposure to a development tool / environment, just simple small dialogs / forms to add columns to data grids, or add a new page.
- Similar to a wiki or a multi user spreadsheet; where a community maintains the content / structure; everyone is a developer; its a community place; basically a less formal application
Perhaps it's best to think of Websheets as a simple wiki like tool that can be augmented with data from the database (e.g. SQL tag) or with locally defined and managed data (e.g. datagrid). This combination of functionality can be used anytime you would use a wiki or simple data collection spreadsheet. The application is not a traditional application; its a community application where all / most users are fully empowered to add pages, datagrids and columns; just like with a wiki. Our vision is that websheets would be used to help manage a project, or anyplace community managed basic page and data content is needed.
We (Oracle) fully understand that websheets in APEX 4.0 is a "version 1.0" feature; and we are hopeful that through this forum, and other channels our customers / users will help guide the APEX development team in the refinement of websheet vision.
Edited by: mhichwa on Jul 21, 2010 11:25 AM