Getting Around Delegation Error from summing a column from SharePoint List

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am working on an application, in which I want to track the costs associated with a project. These gets stored in the PROJECT COSTS list (SharePoint List).

The User of the application will manually add consultants, which are pulled from the EMPLOYEE LIST through a lookup column, which also takes the given employees "Daily Price" and "Daily Cost". These daily cost/price will be multiplied by the total days a given employee works. 

As a project can span over many weeks and we need to track the days worked in a week, I have added ANOTHER list called PROJECT COSTS CONSULTANTS WEEKLY WORK. I put the table INSIDE the editform of the PROJECT COSTS and filter the table to only show the consultants where the ProjectID matches the given PROJECT. Here is a picture of how it looks:

As you can see, I add a consultant and the it drags in the "Daily Cost" and "Daily Price". if I press the PEN ICON I can edit the weeks numbers and it multiplies by the total work days to get total costs.

MY PROBLEM IS THIS:

In order to get all the costs of the consultants connected to the project I am currently editing in the PROJECT COSTS editform, I am using the ClearCollect():

ClearCollect(colEmployeeCosts,

{ID: 1, 
Title: "Employee Costs", 
Amount: Sum(Filter('Project Costs Consultants Weekly Work', ProjectID = IDDataCard.Text),'Employee Total Costs')})

But this is not delegateable with SharePoint.

My question is therefore: Is there any way I can take the total costs of all employees connected to the project and add them up without getting a delegation error?

[mdevaney]

@Anonymous 
From what I understand you cannot find a total project cost since there are over 2000 records.  So my thought was to setup a new column in the overarching projects list called 'Total Costs'.  Each time a new line item is added for an individual cost we would also update the total stored in the overarching projects list.

[Anonymous]

@mdevaney 

So just so we are on the same page. There will be 1 row for each project (in the PROJECT LIST), in which I want to add many consultant costs (in the PROJECT COSTS CONSULTANTS WEEKLY WORK). Here are two pictures of the two lists:

So ideally I want to sum up ALL the "Employee Total Cost" with the "ProjectID" similar to that specific project I am currently editing inside the Project Costs list, if that makes sense?

[Pstork1]

@mdevaney The reason I wouldn't suggest that solution is that it only works if you don't change the sort on the data source.  As soon as you apply a custom sort you can't assume that the total in the last row is actually the total.

[mdevaney · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous  @Pstork1 
I have decided to make a mini-tutorial to explain my idea.  This is a very simplified version of the app @Anonymous has shown us in his post.

#1 Create the 'Projects List' as shown below.  Project Name is a text column and Employee Total Cost is a Number column.  Fill in the list with this sample data.

#2 Create the 'Projects Costs Consultants Weekly Work' list as shown below.  Consultant Name is a text column, Project ID is a LookUp column, Estimated Start is a date column and Amount is a number column.  Fill in the list with this sample data.

#3  Open PowerApps.  Make an Edit Form that looks like the picture below.  Then put the code NewForm(Form1) in the OnVisible property of the screen.

#4  Put this code in the OnSelect property of the Submit button.

SubmitForm(Form1)

#5 Use this code in the OnSuccess property of the Edit Form.

Set(currentProjectID, Value(Form1.LastSubmit.'Project ID'.Value));
Set(currentProject, LookUp('Projects List', ID=currentProjectID));
Patch('Projects List', currentProject, {'Employee Total Cost': currentProject.'Employee Total Cost' + Form1.LastSubmit.Amount});

#6  Fill-in the Edit Form with this information then click Submit.

#7  Your new entry will appear in the 'Consultants' list.

 #8  And the 'Employee Total Cost' in your Projects List will show an updated value. 

Suggest you try to build the example for yourself.  Then you can apply the same basic concepts to your own PowerApp.

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Please click "Accept as Solution" if my post answered your question so that others may find it more quickly. If you found this post helpful consider giving it a "Thumbs Up."

[mdevaney]

@Pstork1 
If you can see any issues with my suggestion I welcome you to raise them.  A critical eye makes my patterns stronger.  😀

[Anonymous]

@mdevaney 

Thank you very much for the incredible detailed description. The reason I see this workaround as a problem, is that the manager who is responsible for logging the employees weekly work can have as many as 30 consultants connected to a project, and having to log 30 consultants work manually each Friday seems like I would drive people crazy.

I definitely prefer the editable table like I currently set it up, maybe the flow is the best option to sum the total costs

[Anonymous]

@Pstork1 

As I mentioned my Power Automate skills are even worse than my PowerApps.

Is there any chance you could help me with the different steps of the flow you suggest?

• Power Apps Trigger

I am with you this far 🙂

• Initialize variable to hold total

So here you propose to choose the "Initialize Variable", but which type and what is my value?:

• Get the list of user's to process

So at this point I choose to get data from the SharePoint List?

•  Apply to Each Loop based on Users to process 
  • Get Items for Project filtered by a particular user
  • Apply to Each Loop based on Get Items
    • Add item to Total Variable
• Once all loops are complete respond to Power Apps with Total

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

1) Trigger - Power Apps trigger - Project ID would be passed in as a parameter

2) Init Variable - Int or Float depending on whether the total has decimals included.  I'm assuming Float

3) This would be a Get Items on the list filtered by Project ID.  Then filter the results to get the list of employees to process for that project. This could be the difficult part.  YOu may need to create a seperate list of employees assigned to work on a particular project.  that would be small enough to query to get the employees on a specific project.

4) Now you do a loop on each Employee you got as output in #3 and do a get items from the SharePoint list filtered by that specific Employee.  That should get you below the data row limit.

5) Now an inner loop to add up the time entries for that employee and store the total in the variable you created in #2.

6) Once you have looped for each employee and each time entry of each employee you will exist with the total. You can now return the total using a REspond to Power Apps event.

#3 is probably the toughest because you probably won't be able to get a list of distinct employees from the main Project list.  So I would suggest a separate list that lists each project ID and employee who are assigned to that project.  That would be a smaller more manageable list for #3.

[Anonymous]

@mdevaney& @Pstork1 

Thank you both for you help and contributions.

I have accepted both of your solutions as they might be helpful to others who are/will encounter the same problem I am in currently.

I am working on the Flow and hopefully it will work.

[Pstork1]

Let me know if you need help with the flow.