Export PowerApps collection to Sharepoint list for multiple users in parallel

[Anonymous]

I am trying to figure out a collection export solution using a flow connected to a PowerApps App. 

The aim is to export the collection on a 'per user' basis. 

Let's suppose users Harry and Ben both have access to use the app.

Harry and Ben are viewing the following collection, col_Items: 

Items

Bugs

Bats 

Bears

They want to export the collection as an Excel table. This should, of course, look like the following, for both Harry and Ben:

Items

Bugs

Bats

Bears

This is currently achieved by exporting the collection to a sharepoint list, using PowerApps' built-in patch() function.

(Then, the list is exported to an excel doc, but that's not what I want to focus on here.)

If Harry and Ben both click on the button that calls the patch() function at the same time, then the resulting Sharepoint list could become jumbled, and/or it often combines the two requests: 

Items

Bugs

Bats

Bats

Bugs

Bears

Bears

Harry and Ben then receive the above list, containing 6 items. This is obviously not what they wanted; they only wanted 3 items each.

(Yes, I've double checked, and it's definitely the sharepoint list that's to blame. The Excel seems to process the list OK.) 

At the root of this issue is a simple problem: Currently, I am trying to process both requests through the same sharepoint list. 

Is there any way to approach this in a 'parallel processing' manner? Ideally, I'd like to create separate sharepoint lists for each request, and then delete them once they are exported to Excel.  Of course, this could be done manually with one sharepoint list pre-created per registered user, but we could have 100s of users and this isn't going to be ideal! 

Is there any way to achieve this? Perhaps sharepoint lists are the wrong approach for this?

If Flow isn't the best approach here, then apologies-I just figured the answer is more likely to lie in a Flow than in an in-built PowerApps feature. 

Thanks. 

[rimatos · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous, 

In this scenario what is your final goal? To export the collection into the excel file? If so, what is the purpose of using SharePoint as a middle man?

There is this community post where a user posts a solution on how write a collection into an Excel file that could potentially help: https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/Write-collection-to-Excel/td-p/461684

Another way you could look into this would be to integrate Flow with PowerApps and use the Excel connector to directly write the data retrieved from Powerapps into your excel file.


Hope this helps you in any way!

Regards,

Ricardo