Collecting multiple SharePoint people with IDs from main row

[PhilD]

I need some help building a collection from a SharePoint list called 'Organizations'. Each Organization (a location really) has multiple Leaders assigned in a multi-select people picker type field.

Ideally what I would like is something like what is shown below but not sure on the approach. In the example below, John appears as a 'Leader' for 'Organizations' having the IDs 12, 157, 52. Jane is only a 'Leader' for two 'Organizations', 3 & 52.

 colOrganizationLeaders

LeaderDisplayName	OrganizationIDs
John Smith	12, 157, 52
Jane Doe	3, 52

Tried things like this but not getting anywhere 😥

//returns all leaders and every combination of org IDs (Cartesian Product)		
Clear(colOrganizationLeaders);
ShowColumns(
ForAll(
    FirstN(
        Organizations,
        4
    ),
    ForAll(
        FirstN(
            Organizations.Leaders,
            3
        ),
        Collect(
            colOrganizationLeaders,
            AddColumns(
                Leaders.DisplayName,
                "OrgID",
                ID // can't match the org ID from original ForAll loop
            )
        )
    )
)
"OrgID")

I think I may need a few steps to go from a distinct list, then build up the IDs but I really need help. 

Any help getting started would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @PhilD ,

Have you thought of collecting both lists (if under 2000 items) and then using In

In the ForAll Loop something like Collect(ColOrganisations,LeaderDisplayName In <TheOtherListMultiField>,OrganisationID)

I know this is not the complete solution, but it might give you some further thought

[PhilD]

Hello @WarrenBelz 

Thanks for helping me think about this.

Just to clarify, there is only one list ('Organizations'). 'Leaders' is a multi-select column in this list so that each Organization can have one, or more than one, 'Leader' assigned.

So thinking this way, maybe if I collected all the leaders (some would appear multiple times), then used Distinct or GroupBy to to narrow the list to show just a single instance of each leader, then I would have the challenge of getting the IDs of the Organizations that each is assigned to in the second field of my collection. This is where that line of thinking gets a little fuzzy on my end.

I appreciate your response... I'm sure this is possible, I think I have just locked myself into a way of thinking that prevents me from seeing how 🙂

[PhilD]

I guess I'm thinking this is not really possible.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi Phil D,

I will have another look at this for you and get back shortly.

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @PhilD ,

This is probably not your solution (I have no multi-value fields to test on), but I got this going on a list of mine (and learnt a few things in the process. The below would get another field from the original list using AddColumns, based on a distinct value in the list.

ClearCollect(
   colOrg,
   Organisations
);     // This just put the lot in a collection

ClearCollect(
   ColLead,
   Distinct(
      ColOrg,
      LeaderDisplayName
   )
);    //This results in a one-field collection with the Leaders in a field called "Result"

ClearCollect(
   colLeaders,
   ColLead
);   //Strange, but this seemed to get around the "result" field type 
     and made it text for the lookup below
ClearCollect(
    colResult,
    AddColumns(
      colLeaders,
      "OrgID",
      LookUp(
         ColOrg,
         LeaderDisplayName = colLeaders[@Result],
         OrganiszationIDs
      )
    )
)

[PhilD · Accepted solution]

Thanks! This looks promising but I've been running around this morning and haven't had a chance to give it a try. When I get back to my office I will let you know how do I make out. Thanks again for helping.

[PhilD]

I guess I must have inadvertently marked this "solved" and there appears to be no way of undoing that.

In any event, this didn't do what I needed because their are multiple Leaders for each Organization so a table was supplied in the formula where a value was needed.

Perhaps I can restate my problem in a different way... If I have a SharePoint list of Organizations, each having one or more Leaders (complex, O365 person field), then surely there must be a way of saying, "which Organizations does Joe belong to?" Ideally we would return a list of IDs from the Organizations list that match (i.e. by UserPrincipalName, DisplayName, etc.). Is this really not possible? I'm having a hard believing that this can't be done somehow...

My ultimate goal is to filter a list of items by evaluating whether the assigned Organization is in the list of IDs associated with the chosen user... getting this list seems impossible?

Keep in mind these are "real" O365 people fields, not just plain text or choice fields. Can anyone share a formula that might work here... thanks!

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @PhilD ,

You are correct in something seemingly simple becomes complex when the PowerApps designers did not foresee someone wanting to do it. A great number of solutions you will see on this forum are workarounds using processes that were never designed to achieve that outcome. However, that is not helping you.

One of my capable colleagues @Anonymous is very good at formulas pulling things apart - I have tagged him to see if he can help work this out. I am still looking at it in the meantime.

[Anonymous]

@WarrenBelz thanks for the tag, I do get a buzz from the more complex questions 🙂

@PhilD 

I have built a solution that works for me, and I'll try to use your details to show you how I did it:

// clear colLeaders first, for obvious reasons
Clear(colLeaders);

// collect into colLeaders a table of names and IDs
// here, I've used my SP ID column but you use your relevant OrgID column name
ForAll(ShowColumns(
    Organizations,"Leaders","ID"),
    Collect(colLeaders, {LeaderDisplayName: Leaders.DisplayName, OrgID: ID}));

// Use GroupBy to build the Leaders collection with their assigned OrgIDs
// Unfortunately you can't use GroupBy directly on your SP list due to delegation issues, however,
// it may work fine on smallish data sets. I didn't try it.
ClearCollect(colLeaderGrouped, 
    DropColumns(AddColumns(GroupBy(
        colLeaders,"LeaderDisplayName","ListOfIDs"),
        "OrganizationIDs",Concat(ListOfIDs,Text(OrgID),", ")),"ListOfIDs"))

Notes:

- inside Concat() I needed to convert my ID column to Text() otherwise Concat() errors out

- I've assumed your SP List is 'Organizations' and your Person column is called 'Leaders', change these accordingly

- Because you are collecting from SP your max colLeaders records will be 2000. My guess is you are aware of this but I thought I'd mention it anyway 🙂

- this is one way of doing this, I'm sure there are other - possibly more efficient - ways but hey, this is my best - for now

- you don't need to DropColumns, I just did it to tidy up colLeaderGrouped!

Here's the outcome, 'Button' runs the above code:

Note: there's a blank Leader name above because there's a Blank Leader in my data set.

Let me know how you get on.