Spreadsheet like data entry

[dungar]

We have a form that i'm attempting to replicate in powerapps so it can populate to a database table directly.  On it, a user will enter their name/date/location, and then fill out money denoms for employees.  For example:

100's

50's

20's

etc

pennies

This would be done for 3 to N employees, and then submitted to the table.  They should never see any data that's on the table itself, only be allowed to submit to it (and data will be validated to ensure no issues there).

I have most of the framework down for what I need (data validation, collect/patch to grab multiple entries, etc), but I'm not sure how to layout the actual data entry part. 

In excel it's just 8 columns, each column being an employee, with the rows being the denoms and various sum ups/other entries, and then my code loops over all that and stops when it hits a blank employee ID.

For powerapps I've tried doing something like a blank gallery, but that only seems to work if there's already records in the table. Any suggestions on what the best way to set this up would be? Or should I just make a ton of text boxes in a grid and then use logic on the submit to collect, validate, submit?

[PowerAddict]

Hi, 

If I understood your use case right, would you not expect just one employee to enter their details at a time? So could you not have a form that displays the fields that you want an employee to enter? I guess will every employee access the app on their own or will all of them submit their values together in one go.

If you like this reply, please give kudos. And if this solves your problem, please accept this reply as the solution. Thanks!

Hardit(Haman)

[dungar]

Workflow it's a management level employee entering data for all employees that worked for them that day, hence the bulk entry/upload, with some data left as is.

I've attached a screenshot of what i've got mocked up so far with some terrible artwork showing what i'm looking for. 

What i'd like to be able to do is put in a grid under the labels where they can fill out the relevant data for each employee according to the header, but i'm not sure if that's possible or if i'm just going to have to make a bunch of text boxes for each "cell".  I

[PowerAddict · Accepted solution]

Makes sense now. You definitely can make it work. One example is to use an editable gallery underneath the headers. Let me know if you can attempt making one, if not, I will post an example in sometime. 

If you like this reply, please give kudos. And if this solves your problem, please accept this reply as the solution. Thanks!

Hardit(Haman)

[dungar]

So the only issue i've run into with and editable gallery, is that in my experience you have to link that to a dataset, which then only shows entries for records that already exist?  As I don't want to show existing data, and in many cases the data they're entering is new anyways, how do I get that to work?

Edit- nvm.  I just need to not connect it to a data source and add the items I want as needed (text boxes).  Thanks

[PowerAddict]

Fair enough. But do you not have a list of employees that you can use to populate the gallery with the rest of the fields blank? Is it because the list of employees could be a dynamic number?

[dungar]

The employee list is unavailable to the data source and that will not change anytime soon. I  have however run into a problem with my current solution in that the gallery will only display 4 rows, when i need up to 8

[PowerAddict]

What's the items property of the gallery? It shouldn't reduce the number of rows displayed unless we are somehow telling it to. 

[dungar]

Ah.  It's currently set to CustomGallerySample, which I'm guessing is just giving me a blank sample of 4 items.    If I blow that out I'll just get the 1 line, which would also be wrong.

[PowerAddict]

You need to blow it out but replace it with something, may be a collection that stores the 8 items that you are expecting to see. 

What are those 8 items and where do they reside?