PowerApps: Word Documents: Populate Table with Repeating Section Content Control?

[jlr89]

I need to populate a table with a variable number of rows from inside PowerApps.

I think the best way to do it is to use the Repeating Section Content Control inside the Word document. 

What I can't figure out is 1) How I configure the flow to accept multiple rows of data, and 2) what I pass into the flow with it's Run function to populate the table.

I tried the function below, however the Flow keeps defaulting to wanting to accept 7 inputs (Product, Term, etc.) instead of a single table.

'PowerApp->PopulateaMicrosoftWordtemplate-2'.Run("CustomerName","2","3","4","5","6",Table({Product:"12",Term:"12",Quantity:"2",Price:"$123",Total:"$246",'Location A':"1234 Somewhere",'Location Z':"44312 Nowhere"}))

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @jlr89 .

If you use JSON on a Table with the exact field names as your Word Merge tags, then JSON again the flow, it all lines up and merges. 

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[jlr89]

I'm not sure what you mean by Word Merge tags (I'm assuming that's a Microsoft Word thing?). As far as I know, I'm not using Word Merge Tags at all. 

What I did was make a Word Document with the Repeating Rows control.

I would assume I'd use the "Switch to input entire array", option in the Flow, but when I do that with the "Ask In PowerApps" option, it apparently breaks something because I get the "Unable to create flow" error and the flow is deleted.

What I don't know how to do is configure the Flow to accept an array/table of data.

I also don't know how what data to pass in to the Flow to make it populate the table. If I use JSON(Table...) What do I use for the key? 

[WarrenBelz]

@jlr89 ,

Here is a test flow I dug out when I did this some time back

The two important things

• You will have merge tags in your Word Table for the fields that need to be populated - the field names in your Table from Power Apps need to be the same.
• The output then (which goes to the Flow string parameter) is JSON(YourTable)

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[jlr89]

I keep getting the Unable to add flow error - "The flow input and output schema cannot be represented in WADL.
code: FlowWadlConversionNotSupported"

When you created your docx in that example, did you use the repeating rows (with each row having multiple plain text inputs) control?

The Microsoft documentation reads: "

1. Once you have added a Repeating Section Content Control, the nested content controllers would show up in the Word connector action. You can click on the "Add new item" button to add a new row. If the number of rows you want is dynamic, then user should make a array of values and pass it into the repeat field. For example, a valid array for the above example would look like: [{"a": "value for row 1", "b": "value for row 1"}, {"a": "value for row 2", "b": "value for row 2"}] Here the keys of the objects are the titles of the nested content controllers. Hence, adding a unique title is necessary. This array can be easily constructed using the "Select" data operation by mapping the values of an array with data to the input array."

When I create the Flow without using "Switch to input entire array", I am not able to pass a table into the flow. 

[WarrenBelz]

@jlr89 , 

I am not sure what that error is, but I also dug out my old test Word template (attached).

[jlr89]

I think I see the problem... PowerAutomate wants an array as that input, but there's no way to create an actual array in PowerApps (that I know of). 

[WarrenBelz]

@jlr89 ,

There is - it is simply using JSON on any table (collection, filter on data source etc). I found my old test code and just ran it again - the below is using a test list, but it could be any table with the field names the same as your Word Merge tags so to but it all together - this code in Power Apps (which simply outputs a 5 field table matching the Word template)

With(
   {
      wData: 
		JSON(
         ShowColumns(
            RenameColumns(
               Filter(
                  Devices,
                  DeviceType = "Laptop"
               ),
               "DeviceType",
               "Field1",
               "DeviceName",
               "Field2",
               "Storage",
               "Field3",
               "Memory",
               "Field4",
               "Processor",
               "Field5"
            ),
            "Field1",
            "Field2",
            "Field3",
            "Field4",
            "Field5"
         )
      )
   },
   WordMergeTable.Run(wData)
)

when run with this Flow

on this Word Template table

outputs this PDF

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