Structuring your workbookStart here
Sheetward recognises tabs by a name prefix. Use these so it knows what each sheet is for:
Form_ sheet field labels, section markers and rule text are always English — never translated. Other languages are added afterwards, and only in two places: the Translation_ sheet (field labels and your validation messages) and the language columns of your List_ sheets (dropdown values). This is what lets one workbook serve every language your app offers.| Sheet name prefix | Becomes |
|---|---|
| Form_<Name> | A data-entry form. Each Form_ sheet becomes its own page in a multi-form app. |
| List_ / Master_ / LOV_ | A lookup (master-data) table that backs dropdown fields. |
| Rules_ / Rule_ / Validation_ | Field validation rules (see Rules below). |
| Formula_ / Formulas_ / Logic_ | Calculated fields, computed live: arithmetic ("hotel + meals"), totals ("sum of hotel from LINE ITEMS"), and IF / Boolean logic. Line formulas may use HEADER fields. See Formulas below. |
| Info_ | Free-text notes about the app, shown atop the app's Help guide. |
| Translation_ | Per-language translations of the app's own field labels, dropdown values and validation messages. |
| Report_ / Analytics_ | A dashboard — KPI tiles, charts and a pivot table over the app's records (see Dashboards). |
| AI_History | Written by Sheetward when you use AI authoring — every prompt, with its date, type (Draft / Revise / Reshape with AI) and author. Read-only provenance; it builds nothing and you can delete it. |
Header vs. line items: within a Form_ sheet you can model a header section plus repeating line items (e.g. a purchase order with multiple line rows). Sheetward links them automatically and keeps that link in exports/imports via a Record ID column.
Section markers: for document-style layouts, put HEADER or LINE ITEMS on its own row to mark what follows. Under HEADER, rows are label/value pairs — several pairs can sit side by side. Under LINE ITEMS, the next row is the table's column header. A title row above is fine, and the marker text is what the Section column in Rules/Logic sheets refers to. A LINE TOTALS block (document totals) is stored with the header. A form may have only one LINE ITEMS section — a second one is a hard error, so the app won't be created until you fix it.
Several sections for a long form: a form with twenty-odd fields reads far better in groups than as one wall of fields, so a sheet may carry as many header sections as you like. Give each block its own banner row in CAPITALS — IDENTIFICATION, WARRANTY, LOCATION — and the app draws one card per block, in sheet order. Two rules apply once a form groups: every banner must be in CAPITALS, and no two may repeat. Grouping is layout only — the fields still store as one record, so exports, imports, rules and formulas are unaffected. Section titles can be translated from the Translation_ sheet.
Form name: a heading row above the first marker (e.g. a merged, centered "Travel Expenses" banner) becomes the form's display name. Without one, the name comes from the sheet name after Form_. Add several Form_ sheets and each becomes its own page; the first is the landing page.
About the app (Info_): add a sheet named Info_ with free-text notes — purpose, instructions, contacts. Its content appears at the top of the generated app's Help guide. Each row becomes a line; blank rows are kept as paragraph breaks. Formatting carries over: cell bold / italic (even a few words styled within a cell) become emphasis, and you can write light markdown too — ## headings, - bullets, and [links](https://…). It can also declare the app's region with country:, currency: or locale: rows (e.g. country: DE), which seed the app's regional settings.
Translations (Translation_): to show an app's field labels, dropdown values and validation messages in more than one language, add a Translation_ sheet plus per-language List_ columns. See the Localization topic for the full walkthrough.