Saving incomplete forms before submitting for approval

[PowerAppsLearn]

Hi everyone,

Just joined this forum today, and I was wondering about a app user scenario.

What if the forms are long and may take some time to fill up, hence the user would like to save his progress before submitting for approval.

Is this possible with PowerApps currently? Or a workaround is required? with SaveData or Patch functions?

Thank you for your help.

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @PowerAppsLearn,

Could you please share a bit more about your scenario?

Do you want to save the current progress within the Edit form before submitting the whole form data for approval?

Further, do you want to save the current progress, and load it when you re-open your app?

If you want to save the current progress, and load it when you re-open your app, you could consider take a try to save your current form data into a Collection, then save this Collection into your local device (Using SaveData function).

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

Add a "Save Current Progress" button within your Edit screen, set the OnSelect property to following:

ClearCollect(CurrentProcess, EditForm1.Updates)
SaveData(CurrentProcess, "LocalData")

Set the OnVisible property of the first screen of your app to following:

LoadData(CurrentProcess, "LocalData", true)

Then you could use CurrentProcess collection to pre-populate the Edit form within your app.

Note: Currently within PowerApps, the LoadData function and SaveData function could only be supported within Mobile device, they are not supported within web browser.

Please check and see if the following blog would help in your scenario:

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/build-offline-apps-with-new-powerapps-capabilities/

More details about LoadData function and SaveData function, please check the following article:

LoadData, SaveData function

Best regards,

[AndySid]

Hi,

you could also use a status field. So you save the form,  status is incomplete. The user can edit the form that you load by status and user, to complete and then update the status? Example Status =  Completed

One of many approaches...

[PowerAppsLearn]

Thanks for your reply @v-xida-msft. I just researched about the collection feature as well.

However, as you said, it can be saved in the local mobile device only and not supported in the web browser, which may be a slight inconvenience if the user would like to continue filling up the forms in his laptop/PC.

I think my concern is to not kick off the approval flows multiple times throughout the saving process

[PowerAppsLearn]

Thank you for your reply, @AndySid

This may be a viable solution as I noticed the sample app (Expense Report) performs using the logic as you described.