Category: Canvas App

Recently we were working on Canvas Apps so thought of listing down some of the key points for quick reference

• Use Items property for defining values for Drop Down and Combo Box.

Items = [“Branch”,”Country”]

• Use DefaultSelectedItems for Setting Default values for Combo Box.

DefaultSelectedItems = [“Branch”]

• To disable multiple selections for Combo Box set SelectMutiple as false

SelectMultiple = false

• Change Data Source of Gallery based on Combo Box selected value

Items = If(ComboBox1.Selected.Value = “Branch”, Branches, Countries)

• Filter Gallery’s data based on Text Box (string search)

Items = If(ComboBox1.Selected.Value = “Branch”,Filter(Branches,searchInput.Text in cre9d_value ||searchInput.Text in cre9d_name), Filter(Countries,searchInput.Text in cre9d_value ||searchInput.Text in cre9d_name))

Filter à

Search à

• Unlock the Data Card field within the form to make changes to its properties

• Use Navigate to move to a different Screen on OnSelect of Button

Navigate(Screen2, ScreenTransition.Fade)

• The first item of the Gallery acts as a template

• Use TemplateFill property to highlight the selected item in the Gallery.

TemplateFill = If(ThisItem.IsSelected,RGBA(233,150,150,10))

• Use Sort to sort the Data Source for Items property

Items = Sort(Requests,’Created On’,Descending)

• Fetch User’s Security Role and hide and show control based on it.

If(LookUp([@’Security Roles’], Name = “Maker”, Role) in Concat(LookUp([@Users], ‘Primary Email’ = User().Email).’Security Roles (systemuserroles_association)’, Role & “;”), true, false)

• Submit, Reset, and New Form on saving a record on OnSelect of Button

SubmitForm(frmRequest);

ResetForm(frmRequest);

NewForm(frmRequest);

• DataField is the most important property of the DataCard, which binds the control to the field in the Data Source.

The default value of the DataCard.

• ThisItem is how we interact with the current record.

• On SubmitForm – the form control reads the value of DataField property of all the cards to find the field to change and the value of each card from the Update property.

• Clear Button and Enable Spell Check option for Text Input

checks for the spelling as well provide the option to clear the text box as shown below.

• Contextual and Global Variable

Update / Set a Contextual Variable (referenced on the screen where they are created) 

UpdateContext({varCount: 1, varActive: true, varName: User().FullName})

Set a global variable (available across the app) 

Set(varCount, 1);Set(varActive, true);Set(varName, User().FullName)

• With UpdateContext we can declare more than one variable at a time, which is not possible with global variable.
• Use GUID function à

To generate a new GUID use  GUID()

To convert a string to GUID(“0f8fad5b-d9cb-469f-a165-70867728950e”)

• To set a variable null – Set(myNullVar, Blank())
  
• GroupBy  function – returns a table with records grouped together based on the values in one or more columns.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-groupby

GroupBy( Table, ColumnName1 [, ColumnName2, … ], GroupColumnName )

• ForAll function – to evaluate a formula against all records of a Table

ForAll(Table, Formula)

• Table – Required. Table to be acted upon.
• Formula – Required. The formula to evaluate for all records of the Table.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-forall

• Component – Reusable control

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/create-component

• Pass parameter 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-param#param

• Patch gives more control than SubmitForm

https://sharepains.com/2020/06/19/patch-vs-submitform-vs-update-power-apps/

• Delegable data sources – Dataverse, SharePoint, SQL Server

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/delegation-overview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/commondataservice/#power-apps-delegable-functions-and-operations-for-dataverse

• Get the response from Power Automate

• App OnStart Property

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/object-app#onstart-property

• Using Excel as Static Data for the app.

http://powerappsguide.com/blog/post/code-how-to-define-a-read-only-table-of-static-data

• Connection.Connected (Offline) – to check if app is connected to network or not.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/signals#connection

• Concurrent Function to evaluate multiple formulas at the same time.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-concurrent

• IfError for Error handling
  

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/functions/function-iferror#iferror

• AppChecker – for checking the canvas app for accessibility.
  

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/canvas-apps/accessibility-checker

Hope it helps ..