How to most easily minimize the amount of fields required for a table like single row item

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am sorry if my subject name is confusing, I simply did not know what to call it.

My scenario is the following:

My PROJECT-LIST pulls data from a another list called PIPELINE. Within the pipeline data recording possible projects are stored. Here we calculate many things such as the total cost of a given consultant, which various based on the role of the consultants. For example Partner has a cost of 5000, price of 8000 whereas Associate has a cost of 1000 and price of 2000, etc. - All the costs/prices are calculated as DAILY.

In the PROJECT-LIST, we want to track the costs related to the project over the period that the project spans over so we can compare to our estimated costs of the project.

We do this by writing the amount of days in a week a given consultant was working on the project. Therefore, each week the manager will write each consultants working days (between 0 and 5 days in a week).

We can have up to 6 different consultant types and a number of each, so this suddenly turns into an excelsheet on its own. I am worried this will first of all create application performance problems as there will be many fields:

A simple calculation in a project with 6 different consultants and 5 of each in a project spanning over 12 month (52 weeks):

6 * 5 * 52 = 1560

Therefore, I am wondering if any of you can help me come up with an idea of how to most easily solve this problem?

Currently I am trying to minimize the total columns I need to create in the SharePoint List by adding a custom card within PowerApps and then have 4 textinput fields inside (accounting for 4 weeks in a month), but I cannot keep the data within those textinputs saved when submitting the editform. How do I do this?

[eka24]

Please can you explain further this last portion of your question:

"but I cannot keep the data within those textinputs saved when submitting the editform"

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[Anonymous]

Hi @eka24 

Thank you for you comment!

In order to not create 100s of columns in the main SharePoint List (PROJECTS) I have added custom cards, in which I want to add 4 simple textinput fields, which I then add the number of days a given consultant works in a week.

Like this:

If I insert numbers in the four textinput boxes below (which also shows the calculation), after submitting, the textinput resets to nothing. I cannot change the "Default" property of the textinput field to Parent.Default:

How do I make sure that the data I have stored in these textinputs stay saved after submitting the form?

The user will have to open the form every week to add new data.

[Anonymous]

@eka24 

So I basically do not know how to set the default to Parent.Default. I have tried with the below, but it gives me an error:

Would anyone be able to help?

@mdevaney 

@CarlosFigueira 

[EvanTse]

@Anonymous sounds like you are having trouble with a few issues here.

The main one is that you are having issues saving the field or retaining the fields?

The secondary issue is that you cannot set the Parent.Default to the text value field?

Does this sound right?

Can you explain more as to how you are trying to save the data?

[Anonymous]

@EvanTse 

When I write a value in the fields as seen in the above screenshot, the moment I submit the form they are erased and go back to having no value in the fields.

So I guess to answer your question it is NOT retaining the fields value.

If the second point of yours is solved I guess it would be the answer to the first point, or am I doing this wrong?

[EvanTse]

@Anonymous - Ah ok.

Looks like the forms usually refresh after submitting.

I would suggest the following adding the inputted text as a variable and setting that as the field's default

1. On each text field's OnChange() property add UpdateContext({[ Variable Name Here ]:[ TextInputFieldName.Text here ]})
2. On each text field's Default() property add the variable name from above

 Don't forget to clear the variable once you are done with it though.

[Anonymous]

@EvanTse 

Thanks for the reply, I guess this could work.

One problem, as you mention at the end I should reset the variable when I am done with it. How does this work?

For example if different people work on different projects simultanously, wouldn't the variable get scewed?

[EvanTse]

@Anonymous  I am not too sure what the goal of these text inputs are.

Are you trying to save them to the SharePoint list when you are done?

If you use the method above, then the variables will only be available for that specific session. Once the user exits PowerApps then the variables will disappear.

If you want them to be re-usable between sessions then you will need to save it somewhere, probably to the same SharePoint list.

[Anonymous]

@EvanTse 

Ah yes your last point is of course very important for me.

In short, I am trying to track the amount of days a given consultant works in a week, so that we can keep track of our costs related to a project (the costs come from a different list and the consultant the same - these are both predetermined when choosing a project in this list). A given project can span over a long time, eg. 52 weeks with different consultant TYPES (with different cost rates) and more than 1 of that type. So to put in perspective I would need to create 1560 columns for each week if the horrifying scenario appeared:

52 weeks

6 consultant TYPES

5 consultants under each type= 52*6*5 : 1560

Therefore, I am trying to keep the weeks stored in these simply textinput fields to decrease the amount of columns I would have to create.

Would it work to make some sort of Collection?