COMBOBOX Issuess!

[asdeev]

When a user selects multiple items from the combox field and submits it, they are able to do that but when they reopen the form to edit it, the selected items disappear and only 1 item is shown.

The DefaultSelectedItems value of my combobox is : { Result: Parent.Default }.

Please advice.

[Mr-Dang-MSFT]

Hi @asdeev,

The way DefaultSelectedItems works depends on how you set up the column: is it a field that can take multiple values or just one?

We'll need more information about your columns to help out.

I made a video on this topic recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwqCEQb3_TM

[asdeev]

Hi,

It takes multiple values and I want all the values to be shown when we go in edit mode of the form.

My data is coming from SQL.

Thanks for all your time and help. 

[asdeev]

DefaultSelectedItems property of my combobx is : 

{ Result: Parent.Default }

When I tried to set the update property of this card to "ComboBox.SelectedItems" (without quotations) it says " the property expects text values but this rule produces incompatible Table values"

[Mr-Dang-MSFT]

What type of column are you using in SQL?

[asdeev]

The column name is "BuildingName" and the Type is nvarchar(255)

[asdeev]

The column name is "BuildingName" and the Type is nvarchar(255) and in Powerapps I have "Location" as a COMBOBOX and the datatype of location is nvarchar(255) . 

The items property of the combobox is:

Distinct(Filter(SortByColumns('[dbo].[SP_Hierarchy]',"BuildingName",Ascending),SiteSubType= "Data Center", Status = "Active"), BuildingName)

[asdeev]

Also, what should my Patch() look like? When the user chooses multiple options from the combobox will my patch finction be Location: Combox.Selected.Result

or should it be concatenating selected items? Please advice.

[Mr-Dang-MSFT]

SQL is not capable of storing multiple selections in the way you're expecting. The column type you have is expecting a string that has no more than 255 characters. But selections in a combobox make up a table (rows and columns), not a string (think 'cell').

There's a couple ways people solve this. One would be to concatenante all the strings from the combobox selection and separate them with a delimiter like a semi-colon. The result of what you save would look something like this:

math; reading; science

This solution would require you to split up that string back into a table later when viewing what is saved. 

The other would be to create an additional table where you save the selections and include a column that relates back to the first. This is part of relational tables.

But before you proceed, I would suggest retooling how you set up your database structure. @Drrickryp wrote a 3-part series on setting up your database. Here's part 1:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Community-Blog/Database-design-and-PowerApps-Step-1-Pl...

Note: SharePoint has a column type that can hold multiple selections out of the box as fyi.

[asdeev]

Thank you!!

I have used the delimiter and it works great!