VERY New to PowerApps - Tasked with Creating Time slotted Socia Media App

[BoyMom826]

Hi! I am somewhat familiar with power automate/desktop automate and sharepoint lists, but powerapps is a completely new territory.

What I am being tasked to do is to create a social media schedule for my organization.

Here are the needs:

- We have 74 local Facebook pages - the user would choose which local page(s) they would like the post to go to.

- For EACH local page, I need an 8am, 2pm, and 7pm time slot to pick from.

- When a time slot is taken from that local page, I need it to be removed and unavailable for selection.

- A gallery (preferably in calendar format) that will show all submitted posts with the department, local page, and date easily seen - bonus points if it's clickable to see the full content!

I've created a SharePoint list that has the following. I would really like to keep the data in a sharepoint lists if at all possible to easily make the power automate flow that I plan to make from the submissions:

- Title

- LocalFacebookPage (Choice with option of multiple selections)

- PostDate

- PostContent

- BusinessPageTags

- Department

- AdditionalInformation

- UploadPostPicture

Of course, if I am missing anything or you need further information please let me know. I truly appreciate any guidance on how to go about this! I am just way too green with this program to be able to get it figured out in a timely fashion!

[FabianAckeret · Accepted solution]

Hi @BoyMom826 

It's certainly not the easiest task to get started with Power Apps 😁. If possible. I would suggest you to start with something easier, but I also understand that you need to get the tasked done.

If the SharePoint list contains all the data about the Facebook page, then great! The most difficult part is already done. This is how I would go about it:

1. Create a gallery and link it with the SharePoint list. This will make sure that you see all the 74 local Facebook pages
2. As for the timeslots, this depends on how you would like to display it. I would say the following controls would be appropriate for the time selection: Checkboxes,  Radio, Gallery, List box or simple Text input
   Depending on the control you choose you would need to configure it differently. I think if the timings are always 8am, 2pm or 7pm, I'd maybe go for a Radio control and create one for each timeslot (rather than create 1 that includes all timeslots - this way, the next step is easier). But it's hard for me to tell which one is appropriate
3. For each radio control, set the Radio.Items property to the timeslots. E.g. for Radio1.Items you could set it to ["8am"], etc.
4. I'm not sure if the "PostDate" is the one that includes the timeslots... if it is, how is it structured? For now, I just assume that PostDate includes the time, e.g. 8am. Therefore, on each Radio.DisplayMode property, set something like the following:
   
   If(ThisItem.PostDate = "8am", DisplayMode.Disabled, DisplayMode.Edit)
5. If you would like to have a calendar control with events, I could recommend you the Power Apps Component by April Dunnam. I took the liberty 4 months ago and improved it (made it responsive, changed design slightly, etc.). You can download it here => https://github.com/FabianAckeret/PowerAppsCalendar

This should cover most of it. Each of those steps are not super easy (apart from the first one), but I think if you use this forum, youtube (Shane Young, Reza Dorrani, April Dunnam, etc. - they're all great for tutorials) you can figure it out. Otherwise, while building the app, you can also ask questions specifically for each step. This helps you to break the issues down and helps us to dive deeper into each problem.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Fabian

[BoyMom826]

Thank you @FabianAckeret ! I will start the process as you listed it and come back with any questions I run into! Truly appreciate the assistance!

[FabianAckeret]

Hi @BoyMom826 

You're welcome. If my answer helped you, it'd be beneficial for others seeking the same answers if you mark it as a solution.

Thanks and kind regards,

[BoyMom826]

@FabianAckeret 

I've built a decent little app here and am now working on only having the available time slots open. 

I'm hoping you can help me with the display properties for the time a little further now that I'm aware of my structure a bit more. 

I've added in a time-specific field and have it as three radio button as you've suggested. It's Item's property is listed below. I had to have it filtered because I had a lot of blank spaces in the remaining slots... 

Filter(Choices([@Social_Media].Post_Time),!IsBlank(Value))

The field that will determine the display is called Local.Pages and is a combo box with the option of multiple choices. What I am wanting is to create a display property on the Post.Time to be able to remove the time slot for just the pages that are chosen. I hope that makes sense.. I'll do an example below to see if that helps clarify a bit more. 

For Example:

The user creates a new list item and chooses the following:

Local_Page Selected Items: Texas, Iowa, Florida

Post_Date: 4/23/21

Post_Time: 8:00 am

I want the next user to come in and have the display unavailable for 8:00 am for the Texas, Iowa, or Florida Local_Pages EVEN if the selections aren't the same for the Local_Pages (let's say they ONLY pick Iowa). 

To further this, I am OK with the displays not showing a time slots because only one of a list of selected items are already used.

Continuing the above example: If the user selected Iowa and Alaska - I'm ok with 8:00 am not showing because Iowa was already chosen, but if they pick Wisconsin only, I still want 8:00 am to be available since it was not one of the Texas, Iowa, or Florida previously used choices. 

Thanks again for helping with this!!! It's definitely been a major learning experience for my first power app!