To update an app's content without rebuilding it, keep that content in a Google Sheet, publish the sheet as CSV, and ask the builder to load from that URL. The app fetches the sheet on launch, caches it for offline use, and shows whatever is in the sheet today. No backend, no hosting bill, and anyone who can edit a spreadsheet can update the app.
What belongs in a sheet
Anything that changes and is not private: menu items and prices, products, announcements, events, sermons and talks, quiz questions, flashcards, timetables, staff or speaker lists, opening hours, offers. In the use cases, nearly every app uses this for at least one tab.
What does not belong: anything personal (bookings with names, user data), anything that must be written by the app at scale, and anything secret — a published sheet is readable by anyone with the link.
Set-up in three minutes
- Create a sheet. Row 1 is the header:
name, category, price, description, image— whatever your items need. One row per item. - File → Share → Publish to web → choose the tab → Comma-separated values (.csv) → Publish. Copy the link.
- In the builder: "Load the menu from this CSV: <link>. Columns are name, category, price, description, image. Cache it so the app works offline."
The builder writes the loader, maps columns to the screen, and shows the cached copy when the phone is offline. Image cells hold URLs — host images anywhere public (your website, Drive with a direct link, an image host).
Multiple tabs, one sheet
Publish each sheet tab separately (each gets its own CSV link) and tell the builder which link feeds which screen: "notices from link A, events from link B, questions from link C".
Refresh behaviour
The default is fetch on launch and on pull-to-refresh, with the cached copy shown immediately so nothing feels slow. For notices you can add "check every 30 minutes in the background and notify when a new row appears" — that is how community and event apps get "push-like" alerts with no server.
Writing back
A published sheet is read-only. For forms — bookings, enquiries, RSVPs — the light options are: send by WhatsApp or email (default), or POST to a Google Apps Script web app that appends a row (ask the builder for "send the form to this Apps Script URL"). Both are free.
When you have outgrown it
Signs: you need per-user data, you have thousands of rows updating often, you need instant delivery, or the data is private. That is when to ask the builder to point the same screens at Firebase or your own API. The screens do not change; only the loader does — which is why starting with a sheet costs nothing later.