Storing many values as a "Template"

[TBuente]

Hi all,

I am building an app that will allow users to create a PDF with many terms and definitions. This is useful for many people in my company, as they often need to search around for different common terms to complete their work. With this app, users will be able to select all of the terms they want, and print them out.

I am quite far into the development of this app; however have come to a stopping point when regarding the "Templates" option. 

In this app, I want users to be able to create a new PDF either from scratch (allowing them to select all of the terms themselves), or start from a template, where preset terms will be selected (users can add additional terms, the template just saves them time for common terms needed often). 

I have come to a stopping point within the "template management" section. I have create the ability for users creating a template (not a PDF) to select the desired terms to save into a template; however, I am running into a bit of trouble with deciding how to host these templates. Originally, I thought to make these templates store inside of my Excel database that I am utilizing to store the terms and definitions; however, I would have to make hundreds of columns (named Term1, Term2, Term3, Def 1, Def 2, Def 3, etc). These templates need to be stored and called upon easily (either for PDF creation, or editing the template itself).

Perhaps I may have to use an Excel database; however, I am stuck on how to display these pre-selected terms AND display the additional terms that are selected by users in ONE gallery. I believe I could use two galleries, and excel with hundreds of columns, but I would like to keep one gallery with a clean database.

[Anonymous]

Just for clarification, do you have a table of terms and definitions yet? How do you want the data returned for the template? Do you want raw text of each term and definition in the template?

[TBuente]

I do have a table for terms, definitions, categories, etc.

I am looking for simple raw text, I just need to be able to show users what definitions they have selected to be in their template. I know I can do this via Excel with many columns, but I guess I am trying to only have "Term", "Definition", "Category", etc columns. I would like to be able to store preset "Groupings" of terms that can be called to populate a PDF form created by a user.

Now that I think about it, if there is a way to create a new table upon template creation, this could work fairly well. Any suggestions on this?

[Anonymous]

Yes, upon template creation, you can use Collect() to add a row to your Excel document. You can include the raw text for the template in that document like this:

Template_ID	Template_Name	Terms_RAW	Def_RAW	Cat_RAW
1	TestTemplate1	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah
2	Test Template 2	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah
3	Hello World Template	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah	Blah blah blah

[TBuente]

So I do have a very similar table setup for templates, as I was testing some solutions; however, I would like multiple terms/definitions/categories to be display separately in a gallery.

For instance, if I have this Excel table

Template_ID	Template_Name	Terms_RAW	Def_RAW	Cat_RAW
1	TestTemplate1	Term 1, Term 2, Term 3	Def 1, Def 2, Def 3, etc	Cat 1, Cat 2,  etc
2	Test Template 2	Term 1, Term 2, Term 3, Term 4,	Def 1, Def 2,  etc	Cat 1, Cat 2 etc
3	Hello World Template	Term 1, Term 2, Term 3,  Term 4,  Term 5, Term 6	Def 1, Def 2, etc	Cat 1, Cat 2,  Etc

I am having troubles displaying these terms/defs/cats individually in a gallery.

I am trying to display these in a gallery like so:

Term1 Cat 1 Def 1

Term 2 Cat 2 Def 2

Term 3 Cat 3 Def 3

Apologies if this is what you meant by your previous reply.

[Anonymous]

I see. It seems like you may need to set up a relationship like this:

Where templates are created and named, then there's a table where template IDs can be related to any number of term_ids, which are related to definitions and categories. I hope I've got that structure correct.

Does that make sense?

[TBuente]

How would you recommend creating this relational database? Using SQL, CDS, or do you recommend another method? I am pretty new to PowerApps, so please forgive my confusion.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Whatever you prefer. You could do it in SharePoint or SQL. I'm not too familiar with the CDS, but I'm sure that would work as well.

The relationships can be defined in PowerApps using AddColumns() as seen here. 

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