How to retrieve all Contacts from Office 365 Outlook

[dott716]

I am building a Power App to list all contacts from my Office 365 Outlook. Currently, only 10 random contacts are appearing. I have over 3,000 contacts in my Outlook.

Where in the Power App do I set it to retrieve all contacts?

Thank you!

[RandyHayes]

@dott716 

You are not going to get 3000 contacts back.  You can specify the number of contacts that you want to get back by changing your formula to the following:

   Office365Outlook.ContactGetItemsV2(Gallery71.Selected.displayName, {'$top':3000}).value

It does not complain about it, but I don't believe it will return all 3000. You can try. 

Also consider providing a search feature on your list to return less results.  Because, the concept for PowerApp UI design is...who is going to actually look through 3000 contact in a list?  Searching the list is the preferred method.

I hope this is helpful for you.

[dott716]

Thanks again, @RandyHayes ...and totally understood on the search feature.

At the moment, I am simply trying to develop my first Power App so pulling all contacts gives me an idea on how to do something like that.

I actually plan to only show contacts that get certain custom data posted to their records -- but that is down the road as I develop!

[RandyHayes]

@dott716 

Understood.  Just keep in mind the searching.  For doing that on the function, you would also need to specify an ODATA query for the $filter parameter.

For example, to get the contacts that have a display name starting with "A", you would use the following formula:

Office365Outlook.ContactGetItemsV2(Gallery71.Selected.displayName, {'$top':3000, '$filter':"startswith(displayName, 'A')"}).value

If you had a text input box for searching (let's call it txtSearch), you could use a formula like this:

Office365Outlook.ContactGetItemsV2(Gallery71.Selected.displayName, {'$top':3000, '$filter':"startswith(displayName, '" & txtSearch.Text & "')"}).value

This would give you a quick search function.

[dott716]

This did the trick but only inside the Power App dev portal:

Office365Outlook.ContactGetItemsV2("Contacts",{'$top':3000}).value

I added it to the Gallery item in the Tree view and it pulled loads of contact records.

I then saved the app, went to the Share link (as that is how I believe I need to go in order to display the app results) and I clicked on the web link but only 10 contacts are returned.

So I wonder how to get the app to display all contact records when I go to display/view mode vs. power app dev mode.

Also, the next question will be how to sort...so is there any documentation on how to configure the `Office365Outlook.ContactGetItemsV2().value` query?

[dott716]

I think I found some documentation:

https://www.carlosag.net/PowerApps/Connectors/Office-365-Outlook#_Toc59CCE79EContactGetItems

[RandyHayes]

@dott716 

Doesn't sound like you published your app.

You need to (when done editing), Save your app, then you need to Publish (then wait a minute or two), Then you can click on the app in your app list and play it. 

Going to your app by the link is really only intended for situations where you need to provide a link rather than run directly from the PowerApp player.

[dott716]

I did not publish the App @RandyHayes because when I first clicked it the pop-up window said that publishing the app allows anyone with some sort of "Can do..." that they can get to the app. My app is intended to be totally private and viewable only by 1 person -- the owner of the business operation. Hence, the reason I did not choose to publish it.

I guess I need to publish it. I hope it stays private and is not discoverable by anyone other than the business owner.

[RandyHayes]

@dott716 

Yes, you must publish the app for the latest edits to be in it.  Even if your app is one-user.  The player will only play the most recently published version.  When you first create an App, the first version is automatically published.  From that point forward, you have to Publish the app each time for changes to be available in the actual app when played.

If you are working on an issue or enhancing your app, you do NOT have to publish the app until you are ready, but at the point that you want your edits to be live, you must publish.

Only people that an app is shared with will ever see the app and be able to use it.  Only users that you have shared with and made a co-owner will ever be able to not only play the app, but also edit it.

However, regardless of the sharing, the Publishing still applies if you want recent edits to happen.

The publishing is a nice feature because you can build an app to a point and then publish it.  Users can use it as you published it.  Then you can continue to work on it and enhance or fix and then (however many versions later) when you finally decide to publish again, then the users will get the new version.

I hope that is relatively clear.

[dott716]

Perfectly clear. Next I need to figure out how to discover the column names of the data items in the Contacts DB table. I tried sorting on `lastName` and `LastName` and both returned no values. Comprehensive documentation for Power Apps connecting to Office 365 Outlook would be an valuable thing to reference...