I have a use case where a read-only grid displays a list of projects, with one column showing statuses such as Complete, Cancelled, Design, etc. I want to enable users to click on the status, which should then display a dropdown containing all available statuses. The user should be able to select a new status, and the update should be saved to the database accordingly.
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I think, the most Appian-like approach is, to design a related action that allows to change the status. Add that action to the grid using a recordActionField.
But, that's not like I try to think about implementing a business process. Changing the status of something is not what the user should do directly, but something that happens as the intermediary or final result of a business process.
100%. If you are manually updating statuses, you've basically back building to a basic CRUD app which defeats the purpose.
If you are intent on doing it the way you described, a simple writeRecords on the dropdown field will do the trick. It will update once you tab out of the field.