Power Apps Custom Forms not refreshing on edit

[AdamD]

This issue very well could be how web browsers handle the forms, but it's driving me crazy and I want to make sure that there isn't something I can do to change it.

I have customized PowerApps forms in a SharePoint list that track user requests for work. When a user currently goes to edit a form and saves, it works great: the form is submitted, and the item on the SharePoint list is immediately updated in their current view. However, if they go back to edit the same item, the form data that is loaded is not reflective of the changes; it loads content in the forms from the last time they'd gone to edit the form. In the attached two-picture example I've made an edit to the project number "1234" changing it to "12345". I Save the job and can then see in the SharePoint list that the change has been made, however, when I immediately try to edit the job again, project number still says "1234." If I attempt to make any changes to that stale form and save them, they will not be written to SharePoint and I will receive no error message indicating something went wrong, which has caused some users a lot of headache.

This behavior can be avoided if the user either refreshes the page or clicks on a different item before clicking back to their original item to edit a second time. Is there anything I can do on the forms side to avoid this? I have the form set to clearcollect the data from SharePoint OnEdit and after save I execute ResetForm. I'm not sure there's much else I can configure in PowerApps to tell it to refresh the data, and something tells me that because it works fine after a browser refresh or if users click to view a different item, it has more to do with browser caching.

Let me know if you have any ideas!

[RandyHayes]

@AdamD 

This might have more to do with an issue on how you are collecting data.  In general, the form should get its data directly from the list datasource rather than a Collection, unless it is absolutely necessary.  

What is your Item property on your EditForm set to?  I would start to investigate there.

I hope this leads to a helpful solution.

[AdamD]

This form was initially created by a previous consultant, and the purpose of the collection is actually largely unknown to me! I can't find any data cards that reference it, everything I've seen does pull directly from datasource.

Item property on EditForm is set to:

If(IsBlank(SharePointIntegration.Selected) || IsEmpty(SharePointIntegration.Selected),First('Document Processing Job Requests'),SharePointIntegration.Selected)

[RandyHayes]

@AdamD 

That's pretty much standard and not a problem. So, let's look at the rest of things.

1) How is the data being saved? Through the "Save" button or is there some other button set up?\

2) What is the formula on the OnSave action or the OnSubmit (if another button) action?

[AdamD]

It's through the Save button. Formula for OnSave:

If(SharePointFormMode="CreateForm", SubmitForm(NewForm), If(SharePointFormMode="EditForm", SubmitForm(EditForm), If (SharePointFormMode="UserEditForm", SubmitForm(UserEditForm), If(SharePointFormMode="NotesForm", SubmitForm(NotesForm1))))); RequestHide()

SharePointFormMode is defined by the OnVisible property for the screen that the form is located on.

[RandyHayes]

@AdamD 

That's looking fine too.  

Let me circle back with you a bit later.  I need to look into a couple things (running from memory here) and I'm away from the ability to do so right now.

[AdamD]

Thanks @RandyHayes I appreciate it.

I'm actually seeing this behavior on all of my customized forms, even simple test ones I create. Any time I go to edit the same item twice in a row, it fails unless I hit refresh in between edits. In other apps connected to sharepoint where I enable users to navigate to a different screen containing a different form, then navigate them back to the original screen and original form in the same instance, suddenly it can't save back to SharePoint. One of the more confounding parts is that I cannot replicate this inside the App. All my screen navigations and saves work fine when demoing the app in the editor, and it can write back to SharePoint to its hearts content. It's just when I try to use the form embedded in a frame in SharePoint where this issue crops up. Perhaps this issue belongs in the SharePoint forums?

[RandyHayes]

@AdamD

So I was looking into this with one list I have and saw no issue at all.  The customization was pretty basic. Just an Edit form and an accept button.  All was fine.  Then I took another list and did customize forms on it and tried it out and saw exactly what you were seeing!!  So what was the difference?  In the "fresh" one I did not have an accept button, I was using the standard "Save" button of Sharepoint.  So again, what's the difference, was doing the same thing in both.  

So after some investigation and trial and error, I noticed that if I removed the ResetForm function that is by default in the OnSave action of the SharePointIntegration...everything worked as expected.

Perhaps you can give it a try as well and see if it helps you out.  I only had a few moments to really look into this, but I'll go a little deeper when I have some time.

[AdamD]

@RandyHayes 

Thank you again for trying to figure this out with me.

I've modified the form not to reset upon save as you suggested, and the form does re-open with my changes. However, if I attempt to edit the form in that edit instance and save, it will fail without an error message. I still have to refresh or click on a new item before going back to get an edit screen that will interact with the list. I'm still puzzled!

In an effort to see if the issue was browser related, I used developer tools in Edge to disable cache and always load pages directly from server--the issue remained the same! I can only assume now that it's not browser caching related, but something inherent in the form logic itself. At this point, I'm just not sure I can control for it and I'm at a loss for what else to test. It's a huge obstacle now for customized forms where I navigate users back and forth between screens.

I'll test to see if the issue can be avoided with in-App save buttons, but I'd like to avoid adding additional buttons to the forms and confuse my users with whether the form's top "Save" button means "save draft" whereas the new button I make to submit the form might indicate to them some finalized submission option. Since my understanding is I can't hide those default "Save", "Cancel", and "Copy Link" button headers on forms in SharePoint, I suppose I'm hamstrung there too.

Maybe someone from Microsoft could have a look or shed some light on best practices? @v-yamao-msft maybe?

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@AdamD 

Sorry I didn't have much time to focus on this - on vacation this week and trying to slip in PowerApps time around the fam.

I took a closer look. I set up a Simple list and customized the forms from that - yes, exactly like you've seen - issues with previous values during Edit.  I typically don't do SharePointIntegrated Apps, so I can't say if this is a behavior that has changed or if it is something that has always been, but it seems that what helps this out is to put a Refresh in the OnSuccess action of the form - in this case on my "Simple" list.

OnSuccess:

Refresh(Simple); ResetForm(SharePointForm1); RequestHide()

After that repeated edits, changes, new's, etc. all seemed to work as planned.

It seems odd that this type of action (the action without the refresh) works fine in non-integrated apps, yet the integrated one's need a refresh.

Again, not sure if this is a change or the norm, but it seems to resolve the issue from what I can tell.