Auto populate the Primary Name column with the combination of two other columns

[JohnYu500]

Hello,

I have a simple lookup table with four columns - Project Manager

1) Manager Name (Primary name)

2) First Name

3) Last Name

3) Supervisor

What I'd like to do is set the Manager Name to be equal to the First Name + the Last Name so that we do not need to manually type it.

I tried the Business Rule way but I found it only allows me to set the Manager Name to just one column, either the first name or the last name, but both. 

Is there a way for me to do what I need to do?

Thank you.

[HSheild · Accepted solution]

Hi @JohnYu500 

You can use Dataverse Real-time Workflows to achieve this. The workflow trigger should be on create of the Project Manager record. Within the workflow you will are able to create a step that updates the Manager Name with a concatenation of First and Last Name.

You will also need to set the Manager Name field to not be Business Required as the user will not be able to save the record initially without setting the Manager Name.

Here is the documentation on Dataverse Workflow

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/overview-realtime-workflows

[JohnYu500]

Hi @HSheild ,

Thank you so much for your response.

I am glad to hear there is a solution.  The real-time workflow seems to require Premium which I do not have currently. Is there any other way to get around this?

Thank you.

[HSheild]

Hi @JohnYu500 ,

What do you mean by real-time workflows require "Premium"?  Are you talking about licensing?  What sort of licenses do you have currently?

If you have licenses to be able to create or use tables in Dataverse then you should have the "Premium" license already.  Unless you are using Dataverse for Teams?

[JohnYu500]

Sorry for the late reply. I am new to the dataverse workflow stuff so I have been trying to understand how it is supposed to work. I still have not found what it is and how it works. I checked on the article following this link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/common-data-service/overview-realtime-workflows  but the article does not tell me what is a real-time workflow and how to get started.

Do you have other references that I can use to learn?

Thank you.

John

[Fubar]

If you are working in the make.powerapps interface then to access the Workflow editor you will need to Switch to Classic inside a Solution file (you define them under "Processes" in the tree view). 

Usage - It all depends on your licencing - realtime workflows/plugins mean the entity becomes categorized as 'Complex' - complex entities are not licenced for Office 365 licences but are for per App licences etc

From the licencing guide:

Complex entities: These are entities that use complex server-side business logic. Any entity (whether standard or custom) becomes complex once the customer/partner associates the entity with the custom business logic. Example: any entity that uses a real-time workflow or code plug-in.

[JohnYu500]

I understand now.

I think I stumbled into the Classic View when I was trying to figure out where to create a real-time workflow and that is where I saw the Premium when I was trying to achieve my goal.

Can this be done in the new Microsoft Flow? Isn't the Classic View going away?

John

[SeanHenderson]

Hi @JohnYu500 

The classic workflows aren't scheduled to go away anytime soon, and yes you can do this in Power Automate.

A quick and easy solution would be to just add a calculation to the Manager Name field:

Use the CONCAT function in your calculation, just be sure to include " " so there is a space between First Name and Last Name.

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[JohnYu500]

Thanks @SeanHenderson .

For some reasons, I do not see the calculation option for this column, which is a Primary Name column.

But I can definitely try using the concat to populate it from the application. 

John

[SeanHenderson]

@JohnYu500 

Sorry, didn't realize it was the primary name, despite that being in your title 😅 which you can't add a calculation to.

You can add a script to the form that concatenates them.