Power Apps - Updating Person field via query string parameter

[AlanMcK]

I have a question for the HiveMind ...

My PowerApps Input form for a SharePoint list has been working just fine. I was recently asked if, in some instances, certain fields in the form could be pre-populated. I use query strings all the time for this kind of thing, so I didn't think it would be a problem. And for the most part, it wasn't.

The one sticking point is a native Person field in the form (1 & 2). It works okay if the user selects a name from the list and submits. But if I use the query string, the native combobox appears to populate (3), but on submission, the value isn't saved into the SharePoint List ... and I can't figure out why.

Hopefully, one of the smart people here will be able to explain what's going wrong.

[ANB]

Hi @AlanMcK , Please help me what is the item property of your combo box?

As you mentioned that this is form, so what is the Update property of your Underwriter datacard in which this combo box is placed?

As per my knowledge, the Update Property should be DataCardValue99.Selected if item property of the combo box is not changed.

If you have changed the item property of your combo box (DataCardValue99), then your Update property of datacard should be this:

{
           '@odata.type':"#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedUser",
           Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|"& DataCardValue99.Selected.Email,
           Department: "",
           DisplayName: DataCardValue99.Selected.DisplayName,
           Email: DataCardValue99.Selected.Email,
           JobTitle: "",
           Picture: ""
}

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I hope this helps.

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,
ANB

[AlanMcK]

Hi, ANB ...

Thanks for the suggested solution ... I changed the Update value and, though the form still works if you manually change the values, when using the query string, the form is displaying this error:

"The requested operation is invalid. Server Response: PeerReview failed: The specified user i:0#.f|membership| could not be found. clientRequestId: 687a19e7-2fb3-4991-866b-a0a5ef1a748c serviceRequestId: b9903ba1-60c8-6000-1274-6b523b319921"

It seems as though the value pasted in by the query string isn't being recognised by the Person Field. Yet it works if I remove the pasted in value and replace by starting to type a name and selecting from the list ...

I wasn't able to find any mention of not being able to update a Person Field from a query string via numerous Google searches, but I wonder if that's what the issue might be ...

Alan

[ANB]

@AlanMcK This is because the DefaultSelectedItems should be of same type. And I can see that you are using 

Param("uw"). It will not work with Param and if your Param is object of 2 field like Email and Display name then the DefaultSelectedItems can be like this:

{
           '@odata.type':"#Microsoft.Azure.Connectors.SharePoint.SPListExpandedUser",
           Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|"& gblvar.Email,
           Department: "",
           DisplayName: gblvar.DisplayName,
           Email: gblvar.Email,
           JobTitle: "",
           Picture: ""
}

Considering that you have declared global variable on app start: Set(gblvar, Param("uw"))

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope this helps.

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,
ANB

[AlanMcK]

Just reading your first response again ... I can confirm that the Items property of the Underwriter combobox (DataCardValue99) remains unchanged from its default of: 

Choices([@PeerReview].Underwriter)

So the DefaultSelectedItems value of:

{Value: Param("uw")}

... should have worked.

Alan

[AlanMcK]

@ANB I'm afraid declaring a Global Variable didn't work either.

On the DefaultSelectedItems code you supplied, I'm getting the error message:

"The '.' operator cannot be used on text values"

Alan

[ANB]

@AlanMcK If the items property is unchanged then the default of datacard should be ThisItem.Underwriter and the DefaultSelectedItems should be Parent.Default

Also Underwriter is of Person and Group type of column so using Param as DefaultSelectedItems will not work.

And regarding "The '.' operator cannot be used on text values", I mentioned this:

It will only work if Param is object type.

Thanks,

ANB

[AlanMcK]

@ANB So, essentially, we can't update a Person Field in a Power Apps form from a query string parameter.

That's okay ... I can pre-populate quite a few other fields from the query string. It won't be much of an overhead for my end users to manually select a value for that Person field.

And at least I can stop trying to find a solution where none exists ...

Thanks for trying to help, though.

Alan