Multi-Select Person Field, How to set the DefaultSelectedItems to what was stored in the SharePoint Field

[subsguts]

I know this has been discussed multiple times, but there is always some wrinkle on it.  I'm hoping what I need is very simple for someone to answer and that I'm just missing it.

1.  I have a field called ListAllProvidersChoice in Sharepoint that is a Multi-Select Person field

2.  I have a combo box where one can select users from the O365.  It's Items property is set to:

Office365Users.SearchUserV2({searchTerm:Self.SearchText}).value

The combo box works.  The Patch works to store the selected people.

The problem:

I cannot get the DefaultSelectedItems populated with what is stored in the SharePoint Person field, which again holds multiple people searched and selected from the O365.

Appreciate the help.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @subsguts ,

I just did an example here with the Items as you have them and the Data Card Update 

ForAll(
    ComboBoxName.SelectedItems As aSel,
    {
        '@odata.type': "#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedUser",
        Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|" & Lower(aSel.Mail),
        Department: "",
        DisplayName: aSel.DisplayName,
        Email: aSel.Mail,
        JobTitle: "",
        Picture: ""
    }
)

and the DefaultSelectedItems (in your case)

ThisItem.ListAllProvidersChoice

and it stored and displayed the items perfectly.

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[subsguts]

This didn't work for me.  It is giving me an error.  

To provide more information, below is what my combobox looks like.  Is called, "cmbListAllProviders"

In addition, this field is on a fluid grid, and I use a Patch statement inside a Save button to Insert and/or Update the field in the Sharepoint List.

If I add the code you suggest to the "Update" property of the Card this combobox is on it gives me an error, saying, "Expected Record Value".  I put exactly what you have except I changed "ComboBoxName" to "cmbListAllProviders".

I don't know where to go from here.  I'm a bit confused as to why the Update property has to be used and why the DefaultSelectedItems can be set to what is stored in the Sharepoint Person field.

Appreciate you help as I've been wrestling with this for hours, read and watch tons of videos to no avail.

Thank you so much

[subsguts]

I think I figured it out, with your help, it clicked when you said "ThisItem".  Since I get to my screen to the update of the record by selecting it in a gallery, I add the following to the DefaultSelectedItems

"BillAreaRequestGallery.Selected.ListAllProvidersChoice"

With BillAreaRequestGallery being where I select what record I'm working with.

This appears to work.  My only worry is making sure I don't need the change the the "Update" on the card?

Thanks again

[subsguts]

While setting the DefaultSelectedItems to "BillAreaRequestGallery.Selected.ListAllProvidersChoice" works in bringing back the stored values.  It prevents the user from additional people using the O365 lookup.

So still not there yet, any help is greatly appreciated. 

[subsguts]

Ok, I officially HATE combo boxes.  So, when I changed the default property, it also did 2 other changes, which I didn't make.

1.  It turned off "Searching", so I had to turn that back on

2.  It changed the secondary field, not the search field from Mail to JobTitle (so I changed this back)

I think the combobox has bugs in it, especially with Search because it flips that flag without any reason. 

@WarrenBelz , so I think that it's done except for understanding the Update property of the card and to ensure I don't need that.  Thanks for your help as sometimes just talking about a problem will bring my brain to a new place.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @subsguts ,

The one way to test this (I would need to build a model to do this)  is to save something and see if it shows both in SharePoint and your Combo Box.

BTW I dislike (intensely) Person fields and any other complex type and simply do not use them. SharePoint is a data storage and Text, Number and Date fields have been totally adequate in everything I have written over the last 5 years.

[subsguts]

Everything is being inserted (New Record) and bringing back what is stored correctly now for the Person Combo Box.  However, if I try to add an additional person and save it, using the same Patch syntax it gives me the following error and doesn't store the added names.  Any Ideas, why it can't find the mail? (I have a feeling it's because when I default select the items in the combo it isn't truly selecting them and getting all the properties of an O365 mail item, sorry don't know how to word this better).

As always thank you for your time.

[WarrenBelz · Accepted solution]

@subsguts .

One of the (many) reasons I do not use complex field types is just this. The Items of the combo box need to be a Table containing all the elements of the field type (in this case you need DisplayName and Mail to be in there). Once you start changing the content, you risk not having one or more of these elements (Lookup fields are another prime example here) and then cannot write back to the field.

In the case of People, I have a list of the names which is saved to a Text field and then have another text field (which you can hide) defaulting to a lookup on the email and saving each time the name is added or changed. Everything is Delegable, you can Sort on it and write back with nothing more than the control content.

[subsguts]

After a lot MORE reading, I have FINALLY gotten this to work without a lot of additional gymnastics (code, work arounds, etc.).

First, when you populate the DefaultSelectedItems of the ComboBox referenced in this discussion it WILL NOT populate the Mail.  However, it will populate the DisplayName.   If you select the item using your mouse, from the drop down, it will populate all the fields, including Mail, but for some reason it doesn't do this when you pass it a Person structure in the DefaultSelectedItems (as described in the other threads of this discussion).  

Hopefully this makes sense.  The way to compensate for this on your Update Patch is by doing the following:

Here is the Patch for the Insert (pretty standard and works wonderfully):

ListAllProvidersChoice:
ForAll(cmbListAllProviders.SelectedItems,
{Claims:"i:0#.f|membership|" & Lower(Mail),
Department:"",
DisplayName: DisplayName,
Email: Mail,
JobTitle:"",
Picture:""
}),

Here is the Patch for the Update (which requires you to do it this way in order to get the Mail since it is not selected when you use the DefaultSelectedItems to populate the combo box with what was previously selected and stored in the Person SharePoint field-changes in bold😞

ListAllProvidersChoice:
ForAll(cmbListAllProviders.SelectedItems,
{Claims:"i:0#.f|membership|" & Lower(LookUp(Office365Users.SearchUserV2({searchTerm:ThisRecord.DisplayName}).value, DisplayName = ThisRecord.DisplayName).Mail),
Department:"",
DisplayName: ThisRecord.DisplayName,
Email: "",
JobTitle:"",
Picture:""
}),

Thanks again to @WarrenBelz for helping me get to a solution.  I'm hoping this will help others as this was a 4-5 hour puzzle 🙂