SPO PowerApps Forms Users from custom list

[ScottSF]

Hi guys, PowerApps newbie here trying to replicate an InfoPath form with SPO and a custom form in PowerApps but not sure how to do it. I have a form with dropdowns on it from which to pick users. These users will have an email sent to them using Flow when the form is submitted. I would prefer not to use a Person or Group lookup as I don't want the user to search all users in SharePoint. Instead I want to use a second custom list in SharePoint which has had users added to it that are required by the form and on the form just have a dropdown showing all users in this list.

[UserList] (list of users)

-Name (type person or group lookup)

[FormList] (will store data for form)

-Manager1 (want this to be a dropdown of Name in UserList)

-Manager2 (want this to be a dropdown of Name in UserList)

-Other fields etc

When form is save I need to use the email address of Manager1 and Manager2 to send emails to them for approval or updates. I'm not sure how this should be save to use the email address later or if it's even possible.

Seems pretty simple but a lookup in SharePoint on FormList won't let me see the field containing the name of the user in UserList and neither does PowerApps if I add a second data connector and point it at the UserList.

Hopefully this makes sense. Can someone please point me to resources which may assist or if not possinle explain why not? 

Thanks, 

Scott 

[RezaDorrani]

Hi @ScottSF 

User List will contain list of users (person field)

In your main list, make Manager 1 and Manager 2 as text fields

In the PoweApps form, unlock your data cards for text fields 

delete the text field and add a dropdown control (the drop down control Items property will show data from your Users list)

Here is an example

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Discussion/Powerapps-BInding-to-dropdown-control/td-p/12...

Regards,

Reza Dorrani

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[ScottSF]

Hi @RezaDorrani , Thanks for the assistance. 

UserList contains 2 fields:

Title (hidden)

Manager (Person or Group)

FormList

Title (hidden)

Manager1 (Single line of text)

From SharePoint I've gone to the list and selected "PowerApps" > "Customize forms" to open the PowerApps builder. All fields in the FormList are added to the form. I unlock Manager1 card and delete the text box. Add a dropdown control to the card. On the Properties tab of the dropdown, I select the UserList as the data source under Items however, the Value dropdown does not show the Employee field which contains the User to be selected. I only see Attachments, Comments, Compliance Asset Id ... ID, Identifier etc

So the form won't let me select the name of the Manager, only the ID of the User from the UserList. 

What am I missing? I've searched the web for this last night and couldn't find an answer either. 

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @ScottSF ,

Do you add a Person type column (called "Manager") in your User List to store the manager info?

Do you want to reference the Manager column values from your User List within your Manager1 Dropdown box?

I have made a test on my side, please take a try with the following workaround:

Set the Items property of the Dropdown box (Dropdown1) to following:

Distinct('20190730_case11', Manager.DisplayName)

On your side, you should set the Items property of the Dropdown box to following:

Distinct('UserList', Manager.DisplayName)

Then set the Update property of the Manager1 data card in your Edit form to following:

Dropdown1.Selected.Result

In addition, if you want to send approval email to the manager email when user submit an item in your FormList, I think the MS Flow (Microsoft Flow) could achieve your needs.

I have made a test on my side, please take a try with the following workaround:

Please take a try with above solution, check if the issue is solved.

Best regards,

[ScottSF]

@v-xida-msft Hi Kris Dai, thanks for your help with this.

I ended up using your suggestion with Distinct(UserList, Manager.DisplayName) to populate the dropdown which worked. I also changed the dropdown to a combobox so I can search results and select from the dropdown however I think this leads to my next problem which is the selected user is not being saved to the FormList in SharePoint. I've updated the datacard containing the combobox so that the update field is:

DataCard Update value:

'Manager_ComboBox'.Selected

Any ideas? (Sorry to move the goal posts on you and change to a combo)

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @ScottSF ,

If you use a Single line text column to store the selected user, please modify your formula within the Update property of the Data card to following:

'Manager_ComboBox'.Selected.Value             /* <-- Please do not miss .Value. The 'Manager_ComboBox'.Selected would retuen a record value rather than Text value  */

Ifyou use a Choice type column to store the selected user, please modify your formula within the Update property of the Data card to following:

{
  Value: 'Manager_ComboBox'.Selected.Value 
}

Best regards,

[ScottSF]

Hi Kris, 

This is not working for me. The display name of the selected user is not saving if I use a single text field nor if I try and save the combo box value. I've tried 2 other tests with text boxes and dropdowns to capture the "manager".

Is it possible to save the selected user data into a person/group field? If so, how? I've seen posts referring to Patch. Perhaps this is an alternative. 

I get an error trying to use a combobox and the update option you provided:

Update field on DataCard using ComboBox (test 2)

Here's a test form where I try and update the value of a DROPDOWN 

Test Form Dropdown Items (test 3)

Maybe I can't update a dropdown which gets it's "Items" from another list? 

Test form DataCard (test 3)

Here's my basic list for Form:

Test Form List (test 3)

And User:Test User List (test 3)

It can't be this hard. Ideally I want a Person looked up from a list in SPO (so users can add to it) used on a form so users can only select those Persons in the list and then saved as a Person in a Person/Group field in the Form list. My concern with using the display name in a single line text field is that if the display name changes the form will potentially not be correct. But that's of no consequence yet since I can't even get the basics working. 

I did manage to get a display name saving to a text box in testing but I had a data card with two object in it (1 combobox and one textbox and when I saved the text box updated but when the combo changed and was saved again the text box concatenated.

Do you have any further suggestions for me? 

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @ScottSF ,

Do you want to save the Dropdown selected value into a Person type column in your Form List?

If you want to save the Dropdown selected value into a Person type column in your Form List, please set the Update property of the ManagerPerson Data card in your SharePointForm1 to following:

{
       Claims: "i:0#.f|membership|" & Lower(LookUp(Office365Users.SearchUser(), DisplayName = Dropdown1.Selected.Result).Mail),
       DisplayName: Dropdown1.Selected.Result,
       Email: LookUp(Office365Users.SearchUser(), DisplayName = Dropdown1.Selected.Result).Mail, 
       Department: "", 
       JobTitle: "", 
       Picture: ""
}

Note: You need to add Office 365 Users connector as data source within your app firstly.

Best regards,

[ScottSF]

@v-xida-msft This still didn't work for me and i can't remember precisely what was going wrong. I think I was getting an error when trying to save the form and saving the manager seemed to work sometimes but mostly not, with error. The red error would come up in the top right corner but only for a split second and I couldn't read or screenshot it.

I ended up getting most of what I wanted with the help of a colleague using dropdown controls and a second column in the User list as a lookup. I'll post a detailed summary of what we did in a few days for others if that would be of value to others?