Updating an Application programmatically

Looking for guidance on this scenario. I have a template application lets call it "Profile" that will be installed in individual workspaces. This app contains references to a central workspace. A subset of the data contained within the "Profile" app is input into the central workspace using references either by calculations or workflows depending on whether or not I want raw text data in the central app or to update a similiar category in the central app with data from the "Profile" app for the purpose of being able to sort in table view in the central app.

Think of the "Profile" apps and associated workspace as a personal workspace and the central workspace as the aggregated view into a table from all of the individual personal workspaces.

I have this structure working well in prototype, but after launching what happens when I want to update the "Profile" app to collect new data and create new flows to send this data to the central app. I've theorized that I could ask people to simply delete the old app, install the new app, and relink to central app, but this seems tedious to the user, so I was hoping to programmatically update the app.

I can trigger a workflow via a hook that will then read through all of the individual spaces and do that updates, but what would be the best way? Should I simply loop through all fields of the existing app in each workspace and compare and contrast against a template app and if the fields are difference update each field individually, if new fields exists then add a new field, and if fields are deleted, delete that field, also accounting for any other updates to workflows etc.

This also seems tedious, is there a broader function/api call that would enable me to simply update an app based on a template app? Could I use something like Update App v2? (https://developers.podio.com/doc/applications/update-app-v2-144091799). Or perhaps there is a simpler way I'm overlooking?

Thanks for any guidance...

Official comment

Casper Fabricius

January 18, 2016 14:51

Hi Chris,

I'm afraid the Podio API doesn't have any convenience operations for mass-updating multiple applications based on a central template. So you will have to code something can update each app yourself, I'm afraid.

Chris Straight

January 18, 2016 15:22

Thanks for update and that is what i figured; however, I was thinking that I needed a very vast and all encompassing update process that has to account for each scenario. After thinking about it, the apps will not be editable by the end user in their workspaces; therefore, the configuration of app once installed will be uniform throughout. I think this means that my API work will be pretty simplistic and that I just need to automate each update on its own, which shouldn't be too difficult.

Updating an Application programmatically

Comments

Didn't find what you were looking for?