How to patch multiple dropdowns in a gallery into a collection?

[Roberto_el_Hajj]

Hello everyone,

I hope all is well,

What I need:

I need to patch multiple dropdowns after they are being selected by the user in a gallery into a collection by using a button

What does the gallery look like:

Whenever the user presses the edit button, the gallery's display mode will be set to Edit mode and the user will be able to add a new record by pressing the "New" button.

After adding the new row in the gallery and whenever the edit button is pressed by the user, the gallery's display mode will be reseted to View mode and all the records will be patched in the same collection.

This collection is being used on the Items property of the gallery.

My expression:

On the "New button":

ForAll(
    Sequence(1),
Collect(ComptCol,
{
 competencyId:Blank(),
 competencyLevel:Blank()

}
)
)

On the Edit button:

ForAll(
    Gallery2.AllItems,
    
    Patch(
        ComptCol,
       ThisRecord,
        {
            competencyId: ComboBox4_27.Selected.id,
            competencyLevel: ComboBox4_28.Selected.id
        }
    )

);

My Problem:

Whenever I add a new item and press the edit button the value of the newly added record is not being patched, instead, a blank record is being added.

So how I can fix this issue?

Any help will be highly appreciated,

Thank you

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @Roberto_el_Hajj ,

Firstly you do not need Sequence in the first one

Collect(
   ComptCol,
   {
      competencyId: Blank(),
      competencyLevel: Blank()
   }
)

and for the Patch

Patch(
   ComptCol,
   ForAll(
      Gallery2.AllItems As aPatch,
      {
         competencyId: aPatch.ComboBox4_27.Selected.id,
         competencyLevel: aPatch.ComboBox4_28.Selected.id
      }
   )
)

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[Roberto_el_Hajj]

Hello @WarrenBelz ,

I made the changes that you posted, but a blank row is still being added to the collection without patching the data.

Please find below the error that I'm getting whenever I press the edit button to patch all the records.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @Roberto_el_Hajj ,

Looking at this again, why are you patching all the records to the Collection at the end ? You are creating a new blank record, which you can have a Save button in the gallery with

Patch(
   ComptCol,
   ThisItem,
   {
      competencyId: ComboBox4_27.Selected.id,
      competencyLevel: ComboBox4_28.Selected.id
    }
);
Collect(
   ComptCol,
   {
      competencyId: Blank(),
      competencyLevel: Blank()
   }
)

 then do the next one and save. What exactly is your process ?

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[Roberto_el_Hajj]

Hi @WarrenBelz ,

My process is the following:

The initial data is being fetched from an SQL server and it's being collected into a collection.

This collection (Comptcol) is the data source of the main gallery as you can see in the picture above.

The user will press the edit button, then he will be able to edit the existing records that are being fetched from an SQL server or add new records by pressing the new button.

When the user makes the required changes (It could be an edit on an existing record or adding a new record) and after repressing the Edit button, I'm trying to update the Comptcol collection in order to save all the changes that were made on the gallery.

Finally, I'll patch this collection into a specific SQL Table.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @Roberto_el_Hajj , 

Apart from my suggestion of Patching one record at a time as they are modified (the most common practice with an editable gallery), I now assume that you have a gallery with both records from the SQL table and new ones created by the user and want to patch all of these back to the collection. This is a bit of a conundrum as you have a mixture of existing records where you can identify "where it belongs" and a group of blank records in the collection where you have no way of identifying which gallery item belongs to which record (unless you patch "ThisItem" as the user finishes each record as I have suggested). Is this an accurate description or have I missed something here ?

[Roberto_el_Hajj]

Hello @WarrenBelz ,

Mainly that's my issue.

As you can see, in this gallery the first two items are the ones that are being fetched from SQL and allocated to the collection in the initial stage. But whenever I add a new item, it's not being patched to the collection.

Moreover, I'm not sure if the problem is from the Patch function or from the dropdown because I tried filtering the last item in order to get the values of the select item which is a newly added item to the existing collection, but it gave me a blank record.

[Roberto_el_Hajj]

Moreover, just to make things clear, I used the following expression on the dropdown's properties:

Dropdown 1:

Items: 

SortByColumns(vwCompetency,"codeAndDesc", Ascending)

(vwCompetency is a View created in SQL)

DefaultSelectedItems:

If(Gallery2.DisplayMode = DisplayMode.View || Gallery2.DisplayMode = DisplayMode.Edit,
 LookUp(vwCompetency,id = ThisItem.competencyId))

Dropdown 2:

Items: 

SortByColumns(vwCompetencyExpectedLevel,"codDesc",Ascending)

DefaultSelectedItems:

 If(Gallery2.DisplayMode = DisplayMode.View || Gallery2.DisplayMode = DisplayMode.Edit,
LookUp(vwCompetencyExpectedLevel,id = ThisItem.competencyId))

 (vwCompetencyExpectedLevel is a View created in SQL)

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @Roberto_el_Hajj ,

I honestly have no other solution than to simply update each record as they are entered. You can actually update each field OnChange (which I find the best). You will still then have a bit of complexity sorting out which records are new and which are to be updated - I have code that will do this in SharePoint (example below), but I am not sure of SQL - note you need your unique identifier in the gallery data for existing records

ForAll(
   ComptCol As aPatch
   With(
      {
         wExist:
         Lookup(
            Table,
            ID = aPatch.ID
         )
      },
      Patch(
         ComptCol,
         If(
            IsBlank(wExist.ID),
            Defaults(Table),
            {ID: wExist.ID}
         ),
         {
            competencyId: aPatch.competencyId,
            competencyLevel: aPatch.competencyLevel
         }
      )
   )
)

[Roberto_el_Hajj]

There is a problem with DefaultSelectedItems as I've added a Text input that patches the data. With regards to the combobox, I hard-coded the value in it and it patched successfully.

Thus, do you think that's the most effective practice??

This is why it patches the newly created records inside the collection, as we were missing the DefaultSelectedItems.

Your help is really appreciated,

Thank you.