1. Open Adalo and head over to your project.
2. Click on the "Database" tab on the left sidebar.
3. Hit "Add Collection" and give it a name like "CachedData".
4. Add fields to this collection that match the data you want to cache (e.g., "DataId", "DataContent", "Timestamp").

1. Go to the "External Collections" section.
2. Click "Add Collection" and pick "Custom API".
3. Set up the API endpoint, headers, and parameters according to your external data source.
4. Map the API response to the fields in your new CachedData collection.

1. Navigate to the screen where the data will be shown.
2. Add a button or another UI element to trigger data fetching.
3. Click on the action (e.g., Button Click).
4. Choose the "Custom Action" option.
5. Create a sequence of actions:

• Check if data is already in the cache.
• If not, fetch data from the API.
• Save fetched data to the CachedData collection.

1. On the same screen, add a List component to display the cached data.
2. Set the List to show data from CachedData.
3. Use visibility rules to conditionally display data based on its presence in the CachedData collection.
4. Use a refresh mechanism (timer, user action) to re-fetch data if needed.

1. Add a field for Timestamp in the CachedData collection to track when data was cached.
2. Create a background job that runs periodically to check the age of cached data.

• Use a tool like n8n or Zapier to automate this, if needed.

1. Set a rule to delete or refresh cached data if it gets too old.

1. Add error handling within the Custom Action sequence.

• For example, check for API call failures and fall back to displaying cached data if the fetch fails.

1. Provide user feedback if data cannot be fetched and no cache is available.

1. Thoroughly test the caching mechanism by simulating different scenarios (e.g., first fetch, data refresh, offline scenarios).
2. Deploy the app once testing is successful.
3. Monitor the app to ensure that the caching mechanism works as expected in live conditions.

This step-by-step guide will help implement data caching in an Adalo application, enhancing performance and ensuring data availability during network issues.