Combining 4 collection into one

[Cobergher]

Hi all,

I have a problem i can't seem to figure out.

I have a Excel datasource (i know, not the best source, but for now i have to deal with that)

The datasource has a table with 6500 rows, i know Powerapps has an issue with 2000+records.

I decided to split the original table, in Excel, into 4 smaller ones with<2000 rows. (columns are identical)

I then made an Onstart formula which loads the content of the 4 excel tables (Table_T1 to T4) into 4 collections (Collection A to D).

I then want to combine the 4 collections into one large collection.

However, that doesn't work, i can only combine 2 collection into a new one. (so Collection A & B into AB and C&d into CD)

Below is the Onstart code:

ClearCollect(CollectionA,Tabel_T1);
ClearCollect(CollectionB,Tabel_T2);
ClearCollect(CollectionC,Tabel_T3);
ClearCollect(CollectionD,Tabel_T4);

ClearCollect(Collection_AB, CollectionA, CollectionB);
ClearCollect(Collection_CD, CollectionC, CollectionD)

To test it i made 7 temp Galleries, and made the initial tables in excel only 10 rows long. The numbers correspondent with the column "ID"of the tables.

How can i combine all the collections into one large one ? Where do i go wrong.

[poweractivate]

@Cobergher 

Can you check if turning off "Explicit column selection" feature resolves the issue?

1. Go to Settings

2. In search type in explicit

3. Turn the toggle to Off

If it did not help, then you should turn the feature back on.

If you need the feature to be on, you need to write the formulas in a different, specific way if you need this feature to be on. If turning this feature off helped, and you want to write the formulas as you are still doing now, you should turn this feature off then, and you should have no more issues of this sort. 

See if it helped @Cobergher 

[poweractivate]

@Cobergher 

Also try this:

1. You cannot test OnStart in the Power Apps Editor unless you click this:

2. I recommend if this bothers you, make a blank Screen, and move your stuff to OnVisible of Screen1. Use the blank screen just to select the blank screen, then Screen1 to trigger OnVisible in the Editor. Alternatively, just preview the app and OnVisible of Screen1 (if it's actually the first screen in the Tree view) should always fire. OnStart does not fire automatically in the Editor and OnStart does not fire automatically in the Editor App Preview.

See if it helps @Cobergher 

[Cobergher]

thx for the effort @poweractivate,

However, none of the solutions works, very strange

[poweractivate]

@Cobergher 

You said even this did not work:

ClearCollect(CollectionA,1,2,3,4,5)

 That's really odd. That's supposed to work.

Could you temporarily try, on your first screen, to use OnVisible and move whatever you have from OnStart to the OnVisible of the first screen?

Also, make one blank screen. Then, to see results in the editor right away, just click the Blank screen and then click the first screen again. Or, if you prefer, just preview the app.

If you want to use OnStart you have to remember to click on Run OnStart manually every single time you make any change and every time you want it to fire  - OnStart does not fire at the start of the app when you are editing or previewing the app, OnStart only works on the final, published app, so I recommend you don't use OnStart unless you want to click "Run OnStart" each time. If you don't click Run OnStart manually every time it will do absolutely nothing if you are still Editing or Previewing the app. 

Like I said, if this bothers you, just use OnVisible instead. When the app is closer to being finished, you can move it to OnStart if you prefer it. It's also possible to just leave the OnVisible like that, even for the final, published app, it's acceptable to do it this way.

If you still have issues with just 

ClearCollect(CollectionA,1,2,3,4,5)

not populating a collection

1. Try to close and reopen the app for editing

2. Try to use OnVisible of the first screen for now while testing it, rather than OnStart. Remember, OnStart doesn't do anything unless you explicitly click Run OnStart - you need to repeat doing this every time you make a change to OnStart or every time you want it to fire, and note that OnStart does not ever fire automatically at all at the beginning of the app, or ever, when you are previewing the app in the Editor. OnStart only fires at the beginning of the app, in the saved and published app that is run directly from the Player by the end-user i.e. not the Editor.

2b When you want to check the new value, either preview the app in the editor, or to see the changes directly in the editor without previewing, just switch back and forth between your empty screen and the first screen by clicking the empty screen then the first screen. 

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with a brand new, blank app if there is still nothing shown.

4. Go to Settings -> Collections, click CollectionA, and make sure the first 5 items are there. If they are not, there is some issue. Recheck carefully steps 1 and 2 above and repeat them, then try this step again.  If the issue persists, repeat step 3 with another new app. If you still have an issue, use a different collection name and repeat step 2 again, making sure to use OnVisible on the first screen rather than OnStart if you still have issues even with that simple formula, and then  switch back and forth between your empty screen and the first screen by clicking the empty screen then the first screen. 

5. If the values are there, and the Gallery is still empty, make sure Gallery Items property is CollectionA or whatever is the name of the Collection you are trying to inspect.

6. If there is still an issue with Gallery not showing anything even for the simple values, select the Gallery, and on the right side, tweak the layout settings, and also, click Edit under Fields and make sure the appropriate fields are selected, and see if it shows up now.

If you can't even populate a Collection with some numbers, there is probably something really wrong, and you'll need to get it to at least do that before you can begin to solve your issue.

if you can get past all of the above, you can try to revisit your original issue. 

A. Try refreshing the Excel data source by clicking the database icon on the left, then the ellipses next to Excel, and then click Refresh.

B. Try this:

ClearCollect(Collection_AB_Temp,Tabel_T1,Tabel_T2);
ClearCollect(Collection_CD_Temp,Tabel_T3,Tabel_T4);
ClearCollect(Collection_All,Collection_AB,Collection_CD);
Clear(Collection_AB_Temp);
Clear(Collection_CD_Temp);

C.  The above might not work well for you though. If each of your tables has "just under 2000 records" - that's cutting it really close to 2000. You may need to call Collect on every single Table, actually, or it just might not work at all for you otherwise.

Clear(Collection_All);
Collect(Collection_All,Tabel_T1);
Collect(Collection_All,Tabel_T2);
Collect(Collection_All,Tabel_T3);
Collect(Collection_All,Tabel_T4);

You should refer to these for more tips on it:

Overcoming the 500 record limit locally 

ClearCollect for more than 2000 records

 

Even if you still can't get it to work with 10 records per Excel Table, you should be concerned more that you will have each of your tables with almost 2000 records each. Even if you get it to work with 10 records per Excel Table, it will not work for almost 2000 records per table, and you will probably get the issue you got up until now. With almost 2000 records per table, you may not be able to even use two Tables at once, or even if you can, you won't be able to go beyond that and you will see the issue you have been encountering up until now with only being able to use two tables at most, and the reason is due to delegation limit. Collect is actually a non-delegable function when it is called on a data source, but it gives no yellow triangle warning. You need to call Collect with each Table being lower than 2000 records each time this is done, so that means you may need to actually do it on every Table. The Collection should be able to grow higher than 2000 total records - however, when Collect is called on the data source, it cannot take more than 2000 records at a time, or whatever the delegation limit is set to. Keep in mind the default is only 500 so you may need to raise the delegation limit in the way I gave in previous response to the max of 2000, or else you may not even be able to populate the Collection from even just one table!