Delegation (Sharepoint) workaround: crazy or clever? Let me know

[Laura3]

Hi all, 

I have set up a workaround for the delegation issues in my app, and I'd love to hear what you all think, because it's an unconventional one.

My app uses sharepoint as a datasource. I have a gallery that I need to be able to sort, filer/search, (text, date and multiselect fields). Someone suggested that a good workaround is to set the data source of my gallery (MainGallery) as another gallery (ShadowGallery) which is based on the entire database. Someone else suggested that this would work, only if the user manually scrolled through all the records on the ShadowGallery otherwise only the first records downloaded would show. 

So I created a timer to scroll through all the items in my ShadowGallery (not visible). [if anyone is interested I can give the details on how to do this]. 

It seems to work fine, the ShadowGallery scrolls through all the records quickly and all the records then appear available in the main gallery. Filter/Search and sort all work. 

Aside from being a resource-intense solution, what do you think? Clever or silly? Do you see any downsides? 

[DBO_DV]

Hey @Laura3 ,

before I give my opinion here a few questions. 

Is it an app for PC or will it also tried on mobile devices?

Did you test the app with older devices? 

How does the internet connection impact your app?

What happens, when you open the app and you search directly for the last record? (Possibility of false/missing results)

What happens when you search after 10 minutes for one of the first records?

Isn't this the same solution as collecting the whole table in different phases but more prone for errors? 

[Laura3]

Thank you @DBO_DV 

interesting questions. I'm trying to create a solution that will be able to grow in time but at the moment I don't have enough records to exceed the limitations yet (but for testing I have set the delegation at 3 records). So if I were to collect all the items, I would need to create a 'bunching' system that allows me to calculate how many records there are and keep collecting them to the end. I guess that would also be some kind of timer. 

I have not checked what happens on a mobile phone. That's an interesting thought, equally I have not tried the other searches you suggest either. The idea is that the user will find the record they need then work with that record, not keep on searching, so those are issues I'm less concerned with. But thank you for your reply. 

Would you say that collecting all the records (in bunches) would be better?

I just love to hear people's thoughts on this. 

[DBO_DV]

By being connected live to a database every time your gallery loads (what will happen frequently as you mentioned) the focus (the record selected) could change. So working with Gallery.selected would be impossible, since the focus wouldn't stay and suddenly the users would be working on a different Record. At least that's the theory. 

The solution with the Collection. To make it work you could use ID's and check if there is an ID greater then the last one of your collection. But that is also not a great solution since depending on how much Data there is coming in, your whole app could get slow, buggy and crash. You can always think, that there's a reason why there is Delegation. Power apps is not a powerhouse for calculation. The strength of the power platform resides in Delegating the work to other systems. 

If you want my advice, there are only four options that I found so far that are working:

1.  Find filters you can apply. Hidden filters on Names or roles ,.... and filters the user can apply. 
2. Fake a search function with filter and Startswith. (I know not great when you want to search for a Subject)
3. Fake a Search function with power automate. You could send the text with power automate to the Database, make a quick search and send the results back to power apps.
4. Change the database to Dataverse. 

[Laura3]

Thanks for your input! @DBO_DV 

[DBO_DV]

No problem, that's why we have this forum.

But I would still be curious of how your solution works. So if you ever have the possibility to make some tests. I would love to hear about them. 

[Laura3]

Thanks!

it's not really meant to work on mobile phones (I will try that sometimes because I'm curious now) but on PC with a delegation limit of 3 (and 290 records in the database), the solution works great.... but I don't know what will happen if those records become many many more.