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Passing values to SP list using cascading dropdowns

Hello!

 

I have been spending quite some time trying to achieve the following without luck.  Browsed through hundreds of posts in this forum and nothing seems to be working.

 

I have a Sharepoint list which contains the details of a service ticket.  To classify the service ticket, I have three lookup fields, each taking their source into other SP lists.  So I have a field for "Customer", "Location" and "Contact".  The SP list "Customer" contains only simple data fields (e.g. the name of the customer).  The SP list "Location" contains the various locations for all customers, hence, one column is a lookup column which draws its values from the "Customer" list.  The third list contains the details of contacts working at the customers.  It contains two lookup columns, which are respectively getting their values from "Customer" and "Location" lists.

 

I'm using Powerapps to customize the service tickets lists.  Users need to enter the details of the service ticket, starting with the customer name, which is displayed in a dropdown control sourcing its values from the "Customer" list.  Then, users select the location, by using a second dropdown, which sources its values from the "Location" list, but I'm filtering the available locations using the value picked in the first dropdown.  Same logic for "Contact", which sources its data from the "Contact" list filtering the options by the "Location" picked in the second dropdown.  I can make this work no problem.

 

My problem is when I'm trying to submit the form: nothing gets saved.  I have been playing around with the various properties of the datacard and the dropdowns, to no avail.

 

I have the datacard which contains the "Customer" information with the "Datafield" property set to the column name of my service ticket list, the update property set to  "Items" property set to:

 

"LookUp('Global Customer',Customer_x0020_Name=ddGlobalCustomer.Selected.Result)"

 

Which should pull the value from my "Customer" list ("Global Customer"), but it doesn't work.  I'm wondering if because I'm using complex data columns, I should be working with the ID of each record rather than names.

I'm also having a lot of issues getting the fields to display the data depending on the form mode.  What I would like to happen is for the fields to show "blank" or no values when the form is in "New" mode and show the actual data of the service ticket when the form is in "Edit" mode.  I'm drawing a blank on both counts.  I can definitely fetch the form mode, but when I'm trying to feed the "Items" property with a "If" statement based on the form mode, I'm getting errors.  For instance, in the dropdown for the "Customer" field, I have:

 

Untitled.png

 

The funny thing is that I can made the "if true" portion of the formula work (as if when there's no "If" statement) and I can also make the "if false" portion work (the "ThisItem" portion.  I also checked that the component of the formula checking for the form mode works, and it does.  I also checked if the "Items" property can accept a "If" statement and haven't found anything to the contrary.  I'm in a deep need for help here!


Best,

 

Winch

 

 

2 ACCEPTED SOLUTIONS

Accepted Solutions
WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@winch ,

This is the fundamental problem with Lookup columns is when you start modifying the content of the controls that write to them (and why they are a <insert profanity here> in Power Apps for me). The content of a Lookup column is a Table with two columns, Value and Id, which are actually the Field and ID of the item looked up in the other table. When you leave the control alone, Power Apps takes care of this with the Choices() for the Items (which includes these values)

Choices([@tblTechnicalRequest].Application)

and simply writes the table item back.

DataCardValue11.Selected

When you modify the Items, you lose the Id and have to then get it back to successfully write to the field. Below is a rough syntax of what the Update would look like

{
   Value:DataCardValue11.Selected.'Customer Name'.Value,
   Id:
   LookUp(
      YourOtherList,
      YourCustomerField=DataCardValue11.Selected.'Customer Name'.Value,
   ).ID
}

They also have other issues with things like Delegation, Filtering, Sorting and GroupBy and are actually historical structures designed before Power Apps existed to interact with SharePoint and InfoPath. I have not used them for a long time.

 

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

View solution in original post

Hi @WarrenBelz ,

 

Sorry for not responding earlier, I did not have much time in the past week to work on this.

 

Your suggestion was spot on: my controls are passing the correct data to my SP list and it works flawlessly.  I also spent more time to change all the dropdowns to combo boxes per your recommandation.

 

For the purpose of helping others, here's what my solution (or @WarrenBelz solution, shall I say) looks like:

 

First level customer: a combo box control which uses the Choices formula to get the values from my top level SP list.  I even added code to display the current value if the form is in Edit or View mode.

 

winch_0-1627622953202.png

 

Values are passed to the service ticket SP list via the Update property of the data card, set to:

 

winch_3-1627623371848.png

 

Second level customer: a combo box control with Items set to the following, which filters on the first level dropdown value:

 

winch_4-1627623747812.png

Values are passed to the service ticket SP list via the Update property of the data card, set to:

 

winch_5-1627623828537.png

 

And customer contact: a combo box control which gets its values from my third SP list, with Items set to:

 

winch_6-1627623972002.png

Which was a bit more complicated in this case, since I needed to recompose a string so users would see both the first and last name instead of the first name only.  I also encountered an issue with the data structure that meant I needed to filter the contact SP list on the values of the two combo boxes, not only the second level one (poor data structure, I know...)

 

And the values are passed via the Update property of the data card as follows:

winch_7-1627624237140.png

 

Now when testing the form, almost everything works:

- I can pick the first level customer, and all available choices are there

- I can pick the second level customer, and the list is filtered accordingly

- I can pick the contact, and the list is filtered accordingly

- I can submit the form and the data gets saved to the SP list (in the lookup columns) as it should be

 

My only remaining issue is when I try to edit the form.  If I open the form in Edit mode, I wanted my users to not only see the three fields with the right data, but I also wanted to allow for them to select another customer, in case there was a mistake made.  To make it clean, I wanted to have the two combo boxes to be cleared of their displayed data should the top level customer was to change.  Same goes for a change at the second level customer (in which case only the contact would clear).

 

I managed to accomplish this using context variables that flicker between false, then true then false again.  When the first level customer is change, I use the OnChange property to update two variables using UpdateContext:

 

winch_9-1627624698905.png


And I set the Reset property of each of the two combo boxes to the context variable.  Did the same logic for changes made to the second level customer.  Works like a charm.

 

I've been struggling with one last thing, the displayed values in the "Contact" combo box, which for some reason does not show anything when I open the form in Edit mode.  The first two combo boxes are displaying the data, by way of the DefaultSelectedItems property (shown here for the second level customer):

 

winch_10-1627624997375.png

 

Which I use to check if the value of the first level combo box matches the current record being edited, and if not, the Reset property causes the combo box to revert to the default value of { } and if so, Reset will trigger the display of the current value in the record.

 

I have applied the exact same logic for my "Contact" combo box, but it loads blank each time.  I've set up the DefaultSelectedItems property to:

 

winch_11-1627625336071.png


The syntax is a bit more complicated due to my desire to display the full name of the contact rather than only the first name or last name, but this works, that's not where the issue is.  I troubleshooted it by throwing "true" and "false" text strings in the then else portions of the function so I can see when the condition is evaluated or not.


The behaviour is a bit strange: if I edit the form, I'll see the first and second level customers combo boxes filled with the data but a blank combo box for the contact (I know there's data in the column/record).  I also know from testing that the If statement evaluates the condition as false.  Then if I change the second level customer value to the same value, the statement turns true and then it will work.

 

This is what I get when I open the form (the data behind the redacted part is correct): the contact is empty.

 

winch_13-1627625884297.png

 

Then if I clear the selected item in "Customer location" and select the same value, then the "Contact" will show.  I also tested that the contact that shows isn't he first one in the list, it is truly the contact that is saved in the service ticket SP list.

 

Quite puzzling!  Would appreciate any help!

 

Best,


Winch

 

 

View solution in original post

16 REPLIES 16
WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hi @winch ,

The Items of a drop-down need to be a Table, which the Distinct() value is, however the second option is a single value (which you can have in the Default).

 

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

 

 

Thanks @WarrenBelz

 

I'm not sure I'm following, by "second option", do you mean the second portion of the formula I posted above, or are you suggesting there's another way to accomplish what I'm trying to do other than using the Distinct formula?

 

Best,

 

Winch

WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@winch ,

The formula

Distinct('Global Customer',ID)

is a Table statement (although it has one Field Result and may only have one item) and is valid for the Item of a drop-down (which is expecting a Table).

ThsiItem.GlobalCustomer

is a single value - you cannot mix data types.

 

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

@WarrenBelz got it, thanks!  Makes sense now.

 

That goes to solve the first portion of my question.  The second portion being, how do I get the selected value for each of these dropdowns to be saved by the form into the SP list?  The list has "lookup" columns as data type.

 

I will post a more complete set of print screens a bit later.  For now, I wasn't able to get the data to save when I click my button (with a "SubmitForm" statement as OnSelect).

 

Best,

 

Winch

WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

Hi @winch ,

My first piece of advice is to throw your Lookup columns away - you simply do not need them if Power Apps is going to be your interface to SharePoint and they will cause you all sorts of unnecessary grief. Simply do the same lookup in Power apps and write back to Text column/s.

 

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

Hi @WarrenBelz,

 

My primary reason to use the lookup columns is that I can use them for data analysis from the backend, not for my users on the Power Apps platform.  The data is also part of a larger data structure which is used in other systems, so for now, I feel I'm kind of stuck with these, but I will consider this option if I cannot get it to work as intended.

 

Also, I was wondering which control  type should be preferred for applications like these: combo boxes or dropdowns?  Does it matter?


Thanks,


Winch

WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@winch ,

Combo boxes are far more powerful and really have no downside compared with drop downs, which are for simple one choice, one field selections.

Hello again,

 

As promised, here is a more complete description of what I am trying to achieve, screen shots included in order to make it easier to understand.  I hope this will describe my issues better and assist you in resolving them.

 

As mentioned before, I'm building a form that is used to fill in service tickets.  The list of service tickets is built into a Sharepoint list, that is stored on my Sharepoint infrastructure.  I'm using Power Apps to customize the form for my users.  The Sharepoint list hosting the service tickets has several columns used to store the data pertaining to the service tickets.  Most of these columns are simple values, but a few are lookup columns, which are taking their values from other Sharepoint lists on the same site.  These lists are basically there to reuse common information that is shared across the entire business, so they can be updated independently and not hard coded into the app.

 

Here's a view of the of a few of the columns that are in this service tickets SP list:

 

columnsSPlist.png

 

As told, some of them are lookup columns that are sourcing their data from other SP lists on the same site.  These lists are being used in other applications, so I have to use them as the source of the data for the service ticket SP list but I cannot modify them.

 

In the Power Apps form, I'm using combo boxes (thanks @WarrenBelz )to get the data from the individual underlying SP lists:

cmbGlobalCustomers.png

The first combo box (cmbGlobalCustomer) is placed inside a data card (this is a canvas app that I'm modifying from the Sharepoint list "form setting" option and the data cards were placed by default by Power Apps Studio)

 

The data card has the following properties:


Default = ThisItem.GlobalCustomer

Update = cmbGlobalCustomer.Selected

 

And the combo box (cmbGlobalCustomer) the following properties:

 

cmbGlobalCustomerProperties.png

 

Here, I'm having issues with which function should be favoured for the Items property: Distinct, Choices or simply the content of the SP list column?  (I had that working initially but made so many changes troubleshooting that I regressed a bit).

 

Once the user has selected the higher level customer, I need the second combo box, which identifies the customer at a more granular level (by its location) to show the choices that are only related to the top level customer.  This is to be displayed in a combo box (cmbCustomerLocation), which I filter using the Filter function:

 

cmbCustomerLocation.png

This combo box has the following properties:

 

Items = Filter('Customer Location','Customer Name'.Value = cmbGlobalCustomer.Selected.'Global Customer')

 

Which works but for which I get a delegation warning, which shouldn't be a problem given the small size of my lists.

 

Again, this combo box is place in a data card.

 

The last combo box retrieves the "Customer name" and works exactly as the second level combo box (except that it gets its data from a the "Customer Contact" SP list).

 

So far, I was able to get all of these combo boxes filtered correctly, and display the proper information, but when I submit the form, nothing saves to the SP list.

 

The funny thing here is that I have got very similar lookup columns that are included in this list and that accomplish the exact same thing, but that were placed there automatically when I started editing the form.  These work flawlessly.  The only difference is that they are not being filtered.

 

Take a look at the following combo box:

 

cmbApplication.png

It has its data source in another SP list called "tblApplications" with the following properties:

 

Items = Choices([@tblTechnicalRequest].Application)

 

And placed into a data card with the Update property set to DataCardValue11.Selected.

 

When I edit an item or create a new item in my service ticket SP list, selecting the application works and it gets saved.

 

Let me know if there are more information that I can provide you, and many thanks for the help you've provided so far!

 

Winch

 

WarrenBelz
Most Valuable Professional
Most Valuable Professional

@winch ,

This is the fundamental problem with Lookup columns is when you start modifying the content of the controls that write to them (and why they are a <insert profanity here> in Power Apps for me). The content of a Lookup column is a Table with two columns, Value and Id, which are actually the Field and ID of the item looked up in the other table. When you leave the control alone, Power Apps takes care of this with the Choices() for the Items (which includes these values)

Choices([@tblTechnicalRequest].Application)

and simply writes the table item back.

DataCardValue11.Selected

When you modify the Items, you lose the Id and have to then get it back to successfully write to the field. Below is a rough syntax of what the Update would look like

{
   Value:DataCardValue11.Selected.'Customer Name'.Value,
   Id:
   LookUp(
      YourOtherList,
      YourCustomerField=DataCardValue11.Selected.'Customer Name'.Value,
   ).ID
}

They also have other issues with things like Delegation, Filtering, Sorting and GroupBy and are actually historical structures designed before Power Apps existed to interact with SharePoint and InfoPath. I have not used them for a long time.

 

Please click Accept as solution if my post helped you solve your issue. This will help others find it more readily. It also closes the item. If the content was useful in other ways, please consider giving it Thumbs Up.

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