Is this even possible?

[g3xer]

Hello,

I am trying to work out if what I want to do is even poissble using Office 365.

1. Input - I want to give a user a choice to select between 2 or more products, this can be via powerapps, a sharepoint list or any other O365 feature.

2. Automation - Then based on the selection I want some automation (probably flow) to locate the matching product description from a sharepoint library e.g. if user selects product 4, 7 and 9, automation would locate the files in the SP library called product4.docx ,product7.docx and product9.docx

3. Output - Then automation would create a new document with all the selected descriptions within it and save to a a SP library

Is this possible using only native O365 featuires i.e, without buying a 3rd party tool\software\addin?

If yes, how?

Thanks

[v-alzhan-msft]

Hi @g3xer ,

The step1 and step2 could be achieved with microsoft flow, however, for the step3 to create a new document with all the selected descriptions, I'm afraid that it is impossible to be achieved with microsoft flow.

Best regards,

Alice       

Community Support Team _ Alice Zhang
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[Anonymous]

Hi g3xer,

Yes, it think it could be done:

1: Definitely possible within the scope of PowerApps.

2: I would use PowerApps for this, too.

3: Call a flow from the PowerApp with parameters of the document IDs from the SharePoint library, then concatenate them with a compose action and use the SharePoint Create File action. This would work even better if you use a format like HTML, Rich Text, or Plain Text instead of DOCX.

[g3xer]

@Anonymouscould you please expand on the steps in your point 3 below, I am new to flow and have little programing skills, but lots of determination.

I can change the DOCX files into any format required.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi @g3xer,

Here is a prototype that I made, please let me know if you want any details on a specific part of it.

Thanks!

Created a new List with some columns for relevant information (courtesy of Amazon). The thumbnails don't show in this list because of my site's ssecurity settings, but they're just URLs to images from Amazon.

Then created an empty site library where I wanted the combined product descriptions to be saved.

Made a PowerApp with a gallery that pulls data from SharePoint list in previous step. Added a checkbox to the gallery so we can collect which choices were selected later.

Submit button clears collection, iterates through the gallery items and adds an item's ID if the checkbox was selected, and calls a flow with the flattened collection as a parameter:

Clear(Choices); ForAll(Gallery1.AllItems, If(Checkbox1.Value = true, Collect(Choices, Value(ID1.Text)))); 'Example-Concatproducts'.Run(Concat(Choices,Value & ";"))

The flow overview is pretty simple

First, we get the product IDs as a string from PowerApps, then use Compse to create an array by splitting the string based on the delimited (a semi-colon), and initialize a string variable to hold the product descriptions.

Next, we loop over each product ID in the array, make sure that the array entry is valid (because we appended an extra semicolon to the end when we compose the array), get each item from the sharepoint list with the desired IDs, and appends the description to a string variable

Finally, I composed the variable just for testing (you can obmit this action), and use Create File to make a file in a SharePoint library which contains all of the selected product descriptions

I ran the PowerApps, selected some products, and clicked submit. Shortly after, this document has been created in the site library.

The file contains the descriptions from the two products that I selected.

I'm sure that there are ways to make this more efficient/better, please only consider this a proof of concept. It can be done, but the perfect implementation is up to you 😉

Please let me know if you have any quesitons!

Thanks!

[g3xer]

@Anonymous  Thanks you so so so much. I will be working throught the night trying to recreate the instructions you have kindly provided. If its ok with you I will come back to you with any queries. Thanks Leon (G3xer)

[g3xer]

Hi @Anonymous  , I have been beavering away for about 8 hours and I am making progress. I have most of the flow built and most of the powerapp built. However I am struggling with the button in the powerapp. You stated:

'Example-Concatproducts'.Run(Concat(Choices,Value & ";"))

Is 'Example-Concatproducts' refering to the name of the flow? 

Here is my error:

Thanks Leon

[Anonymous]

Hi @g3xer,

Yes, Example-Concatproduct is the name of the flow, however to run a flow from PowerApps you need to connect to it first.

Click on your button, then click Action and Flows. Be advised that this will overwrite anything that you currently have in the OnSelect property of your button. Also, you need to have all of the parameter requirements set in the flow before connecting it; if you connect to a flow and then change the parameters that the flow is expecting, PowerApps will not update the flow and you'll have to remove and re-add the connection.

It's looking great so far! I'm happy to help with any other questions.