PowerApps - Adding new column to a collection from output of another collection

[senagaming001]

Hi All,

I am new to PowerApps and having difficulties adding column to a collection from another collection output.

I have this collection named collectDistinctProductTable (Distinct value from Table1)

ClearCollect(
collectDistinctProductTable,
Distinct(
Table1,
Product)
);

and, I have this new collection named collectColumn  which already have 2 columns ( Col1 and Col2)

ClearCollect(collectColumn,{Col1:0,Col2:0});

Now I have this loop below

ForAll(collectDistinctProductTable, AddColumns(collectColumn,Result,0));

What I want to do is from collectDistinctProductTable output I will use it as column name from my collectColumn, the problem is AddColumns parameter for column name need a double qoute. Are there any workaround on this? 

Here's sample code using foreach loop for simplification of what I am trying to do

foreach(columnName from collectDistinctProductTable )

{

    AddColumn(collectColumn,columnName)

}

Thank you in advance.

[zmansuri]

If you want to merge two collections you can directly do it with collect.

ClearCollect(colMain,collectDistinctProductTable,collectColumn)

This will create collection named colMain with schema like this

Column1 Column2 Column3

Where column 1 and 2 are from second collection and column 3 is from first collection

[senagaming001]

Hi zmansuri,

Thanks for your quick response, I try your formula but unfortunately it's not what I looking for.

Let say collectDistinctProductTable has 3 or more rows (A, B, C....Z)  and the collectColumn has already 2 column Col1 and Col2

what I was trying to do is to add 3 rows from the collectDistinctProductTable as column to collectColumn

Expected output is something like this:

Col1 Col2 A B C . . . Z

Thanks in advance.

[v-qiaqi-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @senagaming001，

Have you solved your problem?

Do you want to add rows from collectDistinctProductTable to collectColumn as column names?

Actually, if you want to transfer column values from a collection as a text literal when you use the AddColumns() function, I am afraid that there is no way to achieve this in Power Apps currently.

Although you want to use ForAll to loop through the entire collectDistinctProductTable, in the hope that AddColumns can dynamically add columns to the collectColumn, however, you should know that AddColumns() requires a text literal column name.

AddColumns( Table, ColumnName1, Formula1 [, ColumnName2, Formula2, ... ] )

• Table - Required. Table to operate on.
• ColumnName(s) - Required. Name(s) of the column(s) to add. You must specify a string (for example, "Name" with double quotes included) for this argument.
• Formula(s) - Required. Formula(s) to evaluate for each record. The result is added as the value of the corresponding new column. You can reference other columns of the table in this formula.

You could do nothing but the hard code to achieve this.

Hope it could help you better understand the AddColumns() function.

[senagaming001]

Hi Cst,

Thanks for your response,

Yup I know AddColumn () requires double code in the column name, I was hoping that there are any work around such as putting the columnname in a variable and cast it as string so powerapps can view this that has double quote 😀.

Anyway, Thanks a lot for your help 😊

[AdrianHeald]

Hi,
It's an old topic but I was wondering if there was a solution to this.  I need to add columns to a collection where the names are obtained from rows in another collection.  Sort of like a pivot.

[JonEffe]

I'm afraid I've been facing this problem too, in my case I needed to get Name1 and Name2 from a previous collection and use them as new column names in another collection, tried with this formula

ClearCollect(

    FirstCollection,

    {

        Value: "Name1"

    },

    {

        Value: "Name2"

    }

);

ForAll(FirstCollection As First,

    AddColumns(

        SecondCollection,

        First.Value, <- this would become the new name for the column

        "text" <- this would become the value in the column

    )

)

but unfortunately, at First.Value he says he expects an identifier name and apart from that everything is fine. I hope there will be a way to achieve this in the future, but in the meantime I'll try something else