Patch People field that allows multiple values

[bregan507]

I am trying to Patch a SharePoint People field that allows multiple values. I have been able to patch a SharePoint People column as long as it contains one value...but if the People column allows multiple values, my patch statement only gets the first value and does not work properly. I don't want to use a form and would really prefer Patch, but I'm stuck on this. My People values are coming from a combo-box in which the user inputs multiple people...anywhere from 1 to 6 people...so the Patch statement can't be hardcoded and must be able to read the input from the user via the combo box. 

[RandyHayes]

@bregan507 

You need to always look at the error that you are getting to determine the cause.  If you are trying to write back an invalid value to the datasource, you will see datasource errors in the red-squiggly underlines.  

But make sure the formula level error management is on!

I did mention in the start of this:

So, the first thing to note about your desired solution is that you will NOT be able to remove people from the Person column in your list as you are only going to be appending to the list each time.

So....let's revisit that.  You stated this in an earlier post:

When I go back to the same record, and add another name, it updates the record but deletes person1, person2 out of the SharePoint list

In re-reading that, I believe that perhaps what you might have been saying is that the original people selected (Person1 and Person2) were NOT showing in the combobox selections and that if you add Person3 in the ComboBox that Person1 and 2 go away and you are left with person3.  This is accurate if Person1 and Person2 are not showing as selected items in the list already.

So, I believe we might want to focus on that aspect.

Can you confirm the above?

[bregan507]

Sometimes the code shows red squigglys, sometimes not. If I add a space somewhere in the code all of the red squiggley lines disappear...I know the code is error free because I can click the "format text" button after doing that and it formats the code. I notice the "format text" button is disabled if there is an error in the code.  I just need to be able to remove a person...if there are 4 people and I decide to remove one, two or all people, it won't remove the person. 

[bregan507]

Sorry if I'm confusing...when the form loads, it gets whatever is in the "Reviewer" SharePoint People column, and populates the cboReviewer field. What I'm hoping to do is that each time the user clicks "submit" the patch will take whatever is showing in the cboReviewer box and write that to the SharePoint People column. It can be 0, 1 or multiple items. 

[RandyHayes]

@bregan507 

Agreed...but what I am confused over is, are the currently selected people showing as selected people in the combobox?

If not, then that is what we need to focus on.

[bregan507]

Yes - they are there. What I may encounter is the user decides that instead of 5 reviewers there needs to be 4. I need for the user to be able to click the little x by their name to remove that user from the combo box, click "submit" and the SharePoint list show 4 Reviewers. 

[RandyHayes]

@bregan507 

Okay...that is good that you are seeing the current selected people in the list.

So some of that is what I had assumed in the original formula.  HOWEVER, the formula I gave you should never have removed a person.  So, even if you unselected a person in the combobox, they would still be there after you updated.  I know that is now not what you want, but I am concerned that it happened...they should not have been removed.  That concerns me that I am missing a dynamic about your app and data that is relevant.

Before I go too far on assumptions - what is the Items property of the Combobox?

[bregan507]

cboReviewer: Items
Office365Users.SearchUser({SearchTerm:cboReviewer.SearchText,top:50})

DefaultSelectedItems: varRecord.Reviewer

[bregan507]

Ultimately the goal is that each time the user clicks the submit button, the patch will update SharePoint with whatever is in the cboReview field when "submit" is clicked. Basically...I'm trying to get this form to act exactly the way InfoPath did. Thank you again for your time. 

[RandyHayes]

@bregan507 

Alright, so the issue is going to come about from your Items property.  You really aren't getting any selections from your DefaultSelectedItems because the signature of a SharePoint person will never match the signature of an Office365 User record, and for a Combobox, they must match in order to select.

Change the Items property of your Combobox to the following:

Choices([@yourDataSource].Reviewer)

Change the yourDataSource in the above to the name of the list where Reviewer is.

Your DefaultSelectedItems should remain as : varRecord.Reviewer

Your formula for the patch/update would be the following now:

...patch/update(criteria...,
   {
      Reviewer: cboReviewer.SelectedItems
   }
)

Since cboReviewer is based off of the proper Person signature of SharePoint now (and not 365), there is no need to convert the records any longer.  You can just specify the combobox.selecteditems.

This should now show you the people selected in the Reviewer column properly (selected) and then you can "x" the ones you don't want and add others that you do.

[bregan507]

Changing the items property as you recommended removes the search functionality from the combobox and that is a requirement from my user. I also couldn't get the code to work based on your last post but I'm guessing I did something wrong.  I'm surprised that this is so difficult to do.