How to Submit the same form multiple times

[rgparisoto]

Hello friends!

I need to submit the same information from a form, that have two fields that I have to change, for example:

Date - Value - Obs.

01/01/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 01/10

01/02/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 02/10

01/03/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 03/10

01/04/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 04/10

01/05/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 05/10

01/06/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 06/10

01/07/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 07/10

01/08/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 08/10

01/09/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 09/10

01/10/2018 - $ 50.00 - Part 10/10

Does anyone have an idea to submit this information junt one time, and changing only the fields Date and Obs, instead of submit one by one?

Thank you.

[Sienna]

@Anonymous

"I do think, in some cases, being able to use a loop would be better. My implementation is limited in the sense that there would be always 10 records added and changing that number would require change the source code."

Yeah that is what I meant with limited and tricky.

"But PA is determined to be no-code so having loops looks very unlikely."

Who said that? Was he drunk or high?? I don't even think that this is even possible. I'm ain't no IT guy or programmer but to make something without code is simply impossible unless they will want us to make only "calculators" in powerapps. I think the timer was meant to be a loop function from beginning but problem with the timer is that it is an item therefore it has a lot of properties in it which are absolutely useless for looping so what I used to do was to set the timer invisible and triggered it with the button but I still ended up with 10 useless items on my screen therefore the loop function would be much more better in every cases

"The only issue I can think of right now is when OnTimerStart doesn't increment its iterator before the next loop runs."

You can adjust the number of repeating very easily in timer and as far as I know it worked perfectly but I didn't try that with Patch function yet because the Patch hasn't been in siena before but I'm 100% sure it will work. I used to have 10 timers in my app with seriously massive code in it (2 A4 pages when I pasted it to word) and it was definitely waiting (sometimes too long) and updating the iterator without any problem. Try it and let me know

[Sienna]

@rgparisoto

You got two options mentioned here so you can chose which one you want to use and amend them to your needs. But from your post 

"(It's like when someone buy me something and want to pay for me in 10 months (or more))"

I would use timer. Reasons are mentioned above. In that case you can't use limited SubmitForm with limited Form item and use Patch function and pick the values from each item instead

[Anonymous]

@Sienna --

About the no-code thing? It's on their homepage / feature page or whatever.

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/

I even remember the team rejecting one of the suggested ideas on the premise that PA is supposed to be no-code. (I'd link it but I have no motivation to dig right now. Lol)

And the each loop waiting to finish before repeating... That's good to know. I'd experiment with it but frankly, I really don't have the time right now. Maybe I will in the future. In any case, I've had problems with PA not making sense before. I believe there was this one time (I don't know if they fixed it or not) where if you have a ClearCollect() call before Navigate(), Navigate() might execute before the ClearCollect() is finished. 

@rgparisoto --

Definitely agree with Sienna here. Use a Timer object to simulate a loop and use Patch() instead of SubmitForm() to do the submissions. My method only allows loops with a defined number of iterations.

P.S. This syntax-changing-for-each-locale is tripping me up. lol. Is this unique to PA?

Edit: Minor typos.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

@rgparisoto --

Here's my suggestion for setting it up. A few points though beforehand.

• Be aware, though, that I'm doing PA at a different locale. Syntax will vary. I'll do my best to adhere to yours but take the code with a grain of salt.
• I don't know what your object names are so I'm going to make some up. I'll do my best to make it have sense though.
• This field -- Observações. I'm assuming this is just to note which repetition this is. In that case, you don't need a form to do it. We can just build it with our loop. However, I don't want to just ignore the field that's already there so I'm just going to append that to our screen.
• I'm assuming you don't want your layout / stuff to change. I'm going to work with that arrangement.
• I'm also assuming the field, Repetições, will not be saved in the table and is just in the form as a control. If not, just add that in the patch function.

Set-up:

1. Create a Timer object, let's call it TimerObject, with the following properties:

   OnTimerStart: // The submission code to be added later.
   Repeat: iterator < RepetitionsControl.Value
   OnSelect: UpdateContext({ iterator: 0 })
   Visible: false

2. You already have a Check Icon. Set it to have the ff. OnSelect code.
   

   Select( TimerObject )

3. TimerObject.OnSelect. Base the code you're going to use with the one below.
   

   Patch( YourDataSource, Defaults( YourDataSource ), {
       DataMovimento: DateAdd( DataMovimentoControl.SelectedDate, Iterator - 1, Months ),
       // Add the following fields:
       // Número, Conta, Fornecedor, Categoria, Subcategoria, Valor and Compensado 
       ,
       Observações: Text(Value, "[$-en-US]00") & "/" & Text( Last(Numbers).Value ) & " " &
           ObservaçõesControl.Text
   });
   UpdateContext({ iterator: iterator + 1 })

   Note that if you're saving your list in Sharepoint, then you will need some tweaks in the code. However, I won't be able to help you with it. Sharepoint Lists don't like me and the feeling is mutual.

@Sienna -- Assuming you want to help this guy, any thoughts?

[Sienna]

@Anonymous

"About the no-code thing? It's on their homepage"

Yeahh I kinda lost the trust with Microsoft since all the "ditching" they have done so far. I'm still trying to get over it. If the powerapps will be "no coding thing" it means it will be so limited that no one will work with it. I just think (hope) it is another their unsuccessful idiotic add to get more users to powerapps and mostly O365. As far as I can see nothing has changed since they starded PA with Sienna. They added few more codes(functions) instead of less codes which telling me that the add is just another bull****t (hopefully). BTW why not to make Excel "No Coding Thing" .... Microsoft!!!!

"I've had problems with PA not making sense before. I believe there was this one time (I don't know if they fixed it or not) where if you have a ClearCollect() call before Navigate(), Navigate() might execute before the ClearCollect() is finished"

I haven't try that but if you really need to trigger ClearCollect before Navigate then use Timer too.. I know it sounds really crazy but you can be 100% sure it will be executed correctly every time and in every circumstances 

[Anonymous]

@Sienna --

I actually thought my feelings regarding PA and Microsoft were known in this community. I've ranted a lot of times about PA, especially when a major update is rolled in and it's not backwards compatible. And one of my posts is a Featured Post! Nevertheless, I feel you. I'm just thankful I'm moving jobs in a few weeks and will have nothing serious to do with PA anymore. Good luck, man!

And about the ClearCollect() and Navigate()? We already fixed the issue (by refactoring everything I've written so far. it was not fun.) but I do appreciate the tip. Thanks!

[Sienna]

@Anonymous

"About the no-code thing? It's on their homepage"

I was thinking about the "no coding thing" over the night and here is my another thought. For programmer (proper programmer (geek as you wish)) coding means coding in C++, C#, Java and so on, however coding in powerapps isn't really coding. It is just a bunch of functions glued together and powerapps simply takes care of proper coding (in this case I'm sure it is Java). It is something like advanced Excel. I haven't met anyone what would say "I was coding in excel" but only "I made a table"... However for us as no programmers this is the only way to create an app and those functions are like a codes to us. I think the add should say something like this

"No programming skills required but you can't be dump"

But I don't think that would sell the product

Hopefully I'm right here

[Anonymous]

@Sienna --

I believe we have succeeded in derailing this thread... but what the heck. I'll go on if you want to.

Yeah, I do agree. There is coding and there is programming (...and there's probably a better way of saying that but you get the context). But it's still code. Even if you discount the code similar to what Excel has, I believe PA still counts as having code because not all code is Excel-like. We have imperative functions we often need to perform tasks such as Navigate(), Collect(), Back(), UpdateContext() and so forth. We have variables. We even use programming-esque terminology. In a sense, that's like basic programming -- the stuff people first learn when start to learn "actual" programming. (And what I'm learning right now. Basic level stuff. Yay for college.) To say that PA is no code is pretty much a lie. I'll accept the label of low-code. PA can claim it would handle all the high level programming we usually need to make an app (event handlers, hosting, actual query code, etc.) but it can't claim that the users would never need to code. 

And +1 for your suggested ad! If only. lol. 😄

[Sienna]

@Anonymous

I believe we have succeeded in derailing this thread... but what the heck. I'll go on if you want to.

Yeah what the heck 

Back in Sienna time we could actually post the app into the windows store. You could download a script which transfer your app into the java code and from visual sudio you could just simply post it to the store. Whish the times are back and microsoft didn't ditch that idea. The sienna was not implemented into the O365 and the apps were stand-alone so in your case even if you would change the job you could still be able to work on your apps.

[Anonymous]

---

@Sienna wrote:

Yeah what the heck 

Back in Sienna time we could actually post the app into the windows store. You could download a script which transfer your app into the java code and from visual sudio you could just simply post it to the store. Whish the times are back and microsoft didn't ditch that idea. The sienna was not implemented into the O365 and the apps were stand-alone so in your case even if you would change the job you could still be able to work on your apps.

---

That's actually seems like a better idea. More complexity for users but more control. Less abstraction though so greater chances for faulty and leaky apps. Ultimately, it's a matter of thresholds. Where does Microsoft want to set their limits at? What costs are they willing to take?

Although the fact that they're ditching Project Siena doesn't seem well for PowerApps. And the fact that I can't seem to find a good description page of it in Google also seems worrying. This started when? 2013? And Microsoft's letting it go in about 2 months? If PA continues this trend of simply sucking, then... I don't know. Then again, it won't be my problem.