Add Person to the Multi Select Person Column in Sharepoint from Powerapps

[JatinSaini]

Hi Experts,

Thanks for taking out time to view this. I really need your help to crack this.

DataSource:

I have a sharepoint list named as - 'Liked Topics'. It has a Multi Select Person Column - 'Liked_By'.

Requirement:

I am using a Powerapps view where am providing a user with a Like button. If user likes the topic then his name is added on the 'Liked_By' column if he dislikes then name is removed.

Challenge/Issue:

I was able to check if the user is in that column or not. Now what I am not able to crack is, I want to add the user to that column ensuring that the other users does not get removed from that column and similarly while removing as well.

FYI - I now that for a multi select person column below is the code format:

Table({
Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|user@email.com",

DisplayName: "",
Email: user@email.com,
JobTitle: "",
Picture: ""
})

[LaurensM · Accepted solution]

Hi @JatinSaini,

In order to add a person we will have to temporarily save the current user selection and add a new user to it. Deletion will use the current selection and filter out a certain person based on their email.

Adding a user to an existing selection:

Patch(
    'Liked Topics',
    //Change with a reference to the current record
    RECORD_REFERENCE_HERE,
    {
        'Liked_By': Ungroup(
            Table(
                {
                    Items: RECORD_REFERENCE.'Liked_By'
                },
                {
                    Items: [
                        {
                            Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|user@email.com",
                            DisplayName: "",
                            Email: "user@email.com",
                            JobTitle: "",
                            Picture: ""
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ),
            "Items"
        )
    }
)

Removing a user from a selection:

Patch(
    'Liked Topics',
    //Change with a reference to the current record
    RECORD_REFERENCE_HERE,
    {
        'Liked_By': Filter(
            RECORD_REFERENCE.'Liked_By',
            !("user@email.com" in Email)
        )
    }
)

The hardcoded email values will have to be changed to the email of the user (e.g. User().Email)

If this solves your question, would you be so kind as to accept it as a solution & give it a thumbs up.

Thanks!

[JatinSaini]

Hi @LaurensM ,
No Doubt you are a Super User. Thanks for resolving my subjected issue. I loved your code briefing. Though am curious in understanding the code deeply. 

If possible could you share your thought on how you had achieved this through this code in few words.

[LaurensM]

Hi @JatinSaini,

Thank you for the kind words, it was my pleasure to help! 😊

To give some additional code explanation:

(1) Removing a user from a Multi-Person column.

In this case we simply want to update the Multi Person column (which is of type table) with all of the saved members except 1. This can be done by filtering out (from the current column value) a certain user based on the email value and using that as the updated column value.

(2) Adding a user to an existing Multi-Person selection.

Here we want to add a new record to an existing table value. We do this by creating a new Table, containing records with 1 column, in this case called Items. This Items column (of type table) contains (a) the current selection and (b) the new user also stored in a table/array manner. 

In essence we have the following structure now (nested tables):

Items

[{Claims: ...}, {Claims: ...}] (existing selection)

[{Claims: ...}] (New user)

In order to combine these values into a single table containing all records [{Claims: ...}, {Claims: ...}, {Claims: ...}] we can use the UnGroup function. In this case it ungroups the nested table structure that we currently have into a table of records with the columns that are expected (claims, department...).

I hope this helps!

[JatinSaini]

That was indeed a great explanation. Thanks a lot for investing time on the ask. 

[Chwilkinson]

Hi @LaurensM 

I'm trying to do something similar, 

What do the  RECORD_REFERENCE_HERE & RECORD_REFERENCE refer to please?

Thanks

[LaurensM]

Hi @Chwilkinson,

Record_reference refers to the record/row that you would like to update. This can be a LookUp function, ThisRecord in a loop, ThisItem in a gallery, a variable name if you saved the record to a variable and so on...

I hope this helps!