Powerapps Custom Sharepoint List Form missing some controls

[lfernandes]

I've got a sharepoint list that I've customized a form for in Powerapps. I've gotten it (mostly) working and all the logic doing what I need - it's a simple edit form for most of the screen with a gallery in the rest of the screen. I've got a screenshot attached that I've labeled with red numbers to make this clearer.

There's an html text editor (labeled 1 in the screenshot) that the user can write "notes" to and a button to submit (labeled 2) those notes to the gallery (labeled 4) (as a way to sort of append notes without needing sharepoint append turned on) and for some reason the gallery does not show up in the published app. The button basically stores the notes in a variable and adds a delimiter and that's how the gallery is split - by the delimiter.

My original thinking is maybe a custom list form is special and only allows a single form type and won't show a gallery, but I can't find anything to back that up so I don't think that's true. I've also noticed in testing a lot more that basically anything that's outside of the sharepoint form (you can see the bottom of that form at the top of the screenshot, just above the text editor and the weird green/orange save buttons I have for testing) doesn't seem to function when published. For whatever reason the buttons/icons will also show up, but clicking them does nothing (except the green/orange ones that are inside the form). There's also two simple labels that i put outside the form just to see if they'd display when published - no logic other than some garbage text and they won't show up. 

I'm really stumped on this and hope some one can help me figure it out - the app works great in preview mode but when published it seems anything outside of the built in edit form either doesn't show up or if it does, doesn't function in any way (this includes the HTML text editor). I've made sure they're set to edit as well. I can probably figure out some workarounds for getting most of the stuff inside the form itself, but the gallery can't be placed in a form so I'm not sure how to fix this. Any help?

[RandyHayes]

@lfernandes 

It's hard to really tell from just the picture what is going on.  You seem to have made a lot of edits and changes to the app overall, so the question would then come to be - what have you added or changed?

If you can provide some of the formulas for some of the things that you believe are not working, then that would be a good starting point.

Major ones like the formulas for: The Items property of the Gallery, the Item property of the Form, the OnSelect formula on the Save button, etc.

In general what you have should be working, so there is something that is not done correctly to be addressed.

[lfernandes]

Sure thing, and thank you in advance for the help.

Items property for the gallery: 

Sort(Filter(Split(varSPTest.Notes,"||"),!IsBlank(Result)),Result,Descending)

This takes my variable (varSPTest.notes) and splits it based on the delimiter I add of "||" so the notes show in individual cards in the gallery. 

Item property of the form is the default one that's added by the sharepoint form integration: 

If(IsBlank(SharePointIntegration.Selected) || IsEmpty(SharePointIntegration.Selected),First([@MYSPLIST]),SharePointIntegration.Selected)

The OnSelect of the Save icon:

Set(varSPTest,Patch(MYSPLIST,varSPTest,{varSPTest.Notes & "||" & User().FullName & " - " & Now() & ":<br>" & HTMLTextEditor1.HtmlText})); Reset(HTMLTextEditor1)

I haven't changed any visibility settings or anything so they're not set to hidden or any such thing and just to reiterate - this is a sharepoint custom form, not a standard canvas app, I don't know if that's important. It also works great in the preview but when published it is missing the gallery and random labels I put in for testing (to make sure it wasn't only the gallery missing) and the click functionality doesn't seem to do anything when published but works great in-app.

[lfernandes]

Interesting update:

I started to suspect that possibly global variables set outside of the form were being ignored by sharepoint when the form is published so those text labels I mentioned? They originally had their text set to this: 

"These varSPTest notes are visible" & varSPTest.Notes

 Once I removed the & varSPTest.Notes bit from the end, the original text showed up just fine. So then I started tinkering with declaring the variables (even though they're global and it shouldn't matter) inside a random datacard on the main form. As soon as I made a button INSIDE the form to declare the variable (varSPTest) and removed it's declaration statements elsewhere, anything else using that variable popped up immediately - including the gallery. 

I've never had this issue with canvas apps before - is this some special condition of using Powerapps for custom sharepoint list forms?

[RandyHayes]

@lfernandes 

Yes, I'm very aware of the SharePoint integration.  It is pretty much all the same as the regular canvas app except that it is integrated with SharePoint.

My first question comes from the indication that you have a Form and yet for some reason you are using patch and a variable.  None of this is needed with a form, so can you explain a little more as to the purpose of that?

If there are issues with controls outside not seeing into the form, then this usually means there is not a valid record on the form at the time. 

My suggestion at the moment would be to get rid of the variable and the patching and use the form to do all the work for you.  You might be overcomplicating your work a little bit.

[lfernandes]

I definitely tend to overcomplicate things, so you could be right there however there was a thought process behind the patch/variable.

Essentially each record (about 20+ columns) has just a single notes field (multi line text column) in the sharepoint list and we will have multiple users/departments adding their own notes to each record in that list and we want some sort of version control. Originally the plan was just to use that Append Changes option in sharepoint but quickly realized that it doesn't work with a powerapps form (and we do need a powerapps form) so I started looking up ways to make powerapps do a similar thing and that was using the patch functionality with a variable and adding things to the note - like the username of the person submitting it, the date, time, etc. 

Then we also need to be able to see all those notes in a way that isn't just a massive garbled list of HTML text so a gallery with an html text field with each entry in the notes being split by a delimiter seemed to be the best way.

I'm not saying they definitely ARE the best way, but that's the kind of functionality we need - the ability to add notes to the note field for each record and have those notes be split by who entered it and when. 

Does that make sense?

[RandyHayes]

@lfernandes 

Yes, number one rule in PowerApps - Keep It Super Simple!!

Your method of recording the notes is perfectly fine.  I use this method quite often.  As well, I usually also include the user, time and date and in some cases additional information for location in the app (depending on the app).  So, this all works quite well.

There is no variable needed (except one...explained below) or Patch needed to do this and it can all be handled by your form.

So first, your Gallery for the notes can be in or out of the Form.  Either is fine.  If you do it in the form, then there is no extra variable needed.  If you do it outside of the gallery, then a variable is needed.

Here's how to go about it inside the Form.

Add a custom datacard to your form and then, inside of that, add your Gallery.  For the Gallery Items property, set the formula to:

Sort(
    ForAll(Filter(Split(ThisItem.Notes, "||"), !IsBlank(Result)),
        With({_noteInfo: Split(Result, "~")},
            {User: First(_noteInfo).Result,
             NoteTime: DateTimeValue(Last(FirstN(_noteInfo, 2)).Result),
             Note: Last(FirstN(_noteInfo, 3))
            }
        )
    ),
    NoteTime, Descending
)

This will provide your Gallery with a table with three columns - the User, NoteTime and Note.  Create labels in the Gallery to display them.

Your RichText editor can also be in the form in a custom datacard, or outside.  Either way will not impact this example.

First, you will have (and need to have) the Notes field included in your Form.  If you want to make it non-visible, then set the Visible on the DataCard to false.

On the Update property of the DataCard, set the following formula:

Self.Default &
  "||" &                               // New appended note
  User.FullName() & "~" &              // note header field 1
  Text(Now(), ShortDateTime) & "~" &   // note header field 2
  HTMLTextEditor1.HtmlText             // Note

That is all you need and you will have the type of notes you are looking for.

Now, you will use the standard SubmitForm(yourForm) to do all the work for you.

To do this outside of the Gallery

Your Update property on the DataCard for the Notes field will remain the same.

The only difference is that the Gallery needs to get the Notes column and it cannot get it directly from the Form, so it needs to do it from a variable.

That means that the form would need a record variable for the current record in the list.

To do that, you would need to implement in the OnEdit of the SharePointIntegration object the following:

Set(glbCurrentRecord, Coalesce(SharePointIntegration.Selected, First(yourListName));
EditForm(yourForm)

And on the OnView, the following:

Set(glbCurrentRecord, Coalesce(SharePointIntegration.Selected, First(yourListName));
ViewForm(yourForm)

Then you will change the OnNew action to the following:

Set(glbCurrentRecord, Defaults(yourListName)); EditForm(yourForm)

Then you need to change the Item property on your Form to glbCurrentRecord and in the Gallery Items property, you would change the ThisItem.Notes to glbCurrentRecord.Notes

All the rest will work the same all happening in the SubmitForm(yourForm) function.

[lfernandes]

This is really awesome! I haven't gotten to test it yet but I will and if it works like it seems to, I'll mark it as the solution!

[RandyHayes]

@lfernandes 

Yes, it all works well.  I might have a typo in something, but other than that, it works fine.

Give it a shot and let me know!

[lfernandes]

Finally had time to sit down and test this out and I've got it somewhat working but still have a few issues with it. 

The time won't display at all but the user and the note do show. The only thing that might be a variance from what you suggested is that I used HTML text labels instead of regular labels since my editor is an HTML editor. 

The other interesting thing is that my first gallery entry is blank (in the gallery itself) and I assume you were accounting for that to happen with the IsBlank filter, however I think it's not working because the data isn't actually blank - it's just the generic HTML formatting text that comes over from the editor. The first entry is "blank" but the actual text is:

<div class="ExternalClassDD894F3EA2F540BEAA5CD2CA43E1697B"><div class="ExternalClassFB5196C222854D75B99FD3D43C11B474" style="font-family&#58;Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size&#58;11pt;color&#58;rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br></div></div>

So I think that's causing problems ignoring the "isblank" instead. 

Any advice on the date/time showing up blank? My HTMLText entry for that one is: ThisItem.NoteTime and my other two are ThisItem.User and ThisItem.Note.Result - does that sound right?