Use a connected service in your app
Ask the builder to read from or write to a service you connected, and understand how those calls are billed.
Once you have connected a service, your app can use it. You ask for the behaviour in the chat in plain language, the same way you ask for anything else, and the builder adds it to your app. You do not need to know how the service's own interface works.
Who the app acts as
A connection belongs to your account, so the app always acts as you. You, and the people you invite to edit the app, are the ones who can use it. The people who visit or sign in to your app cannot, and a public app cannot use connections at all.
In practice, a connected service is reached while you or an editor is using the app. Describe the action as something you do, and make the app private if it needs a connection.
Ask in plain language
Describe what should be read or written, and when it should happen:
Pull the rows from my Sales 2026 spreadsheet into the products list when I open the products page.
Add a row to the Bookings sheet when I confirm a booking.
Post a message to the #orders channel when I record a payment.
Put the appointments I add on my Google Calendar.
Include the name of the spreadsheet, channel, calendar, or form if you know it. The app can also look through what your connection can reach, so you can describe the one you mean and the builder finds it.
What the app can do
Reading and writing both work the same way: the app asks AppHandle for the data, AppHandle talks to the service using your connection, and the result comes back to the app. The app can only do what the service allows for the connection you approved. A read-only connection, such as Google Forms, cannot write anything back.
The connection used is always yours, the app owner's, and nobody sees your login to the other service. Every call made through it is billed to you, so keep it to the work the app needs.
What these calls cost
Every call your app makes to a connected service is metered — from your monthly included usage first, then your balance — per call. Current prices are on the pricing page, along with the other per-use units.
The count is what matters most:
- Reading one range of a spreadsheet is one call.
- Work that repeats multiplies the count. Adding one row per record, or reading the service every time a page loads, means many small calls.
- If you expect a busy screen or a long list, ask for the work to be done in as few calls as possible — fetch once and reuse the result, or gather rows into a single write.
Each app can make up to 100,000 connected-service calls in a day. The limit is a safety rail rather than a billing one, and it sits far above normal use. Email and calls to an outside API are billed the same per-use way; Send email from your app and Connect an outside API cover those.
If a connection stops working
If a service is disconnected, or its permission is withdrawn, the parts of your app that depend on it stop working. In Account settings → Integrations, disconnect the service and connect it again to approve access afresh; the parts of the app that use it then resume. If you changed something at the service itself, such as renaming a spreadsheet or channel, tell the builder so the app can be pointed at the new name.
Where to go next
Google Workspace covers the most common services in detail, and Send notifications to Slack explains one of the most useful things to connect.