Connecting a Power App to a SharePoint list by display name

[Jronash]

I'm guessing this isn't possible, but wanted to confirm.

I want to build a Power App that connects to a SharePoint list with several thousand items.  This list is updated periodically, and the way it is updated is that the whole list is deleted (which is much faster than trying to delete each of the items) and then re-created with fresh data.

The list name is the same, all the column names are the same, everything is the same.

Is my Power App's connection to this list going to be destroyed every time the list is deleted and re-built?  I assume so.

Is there any way to connect to a SharePoint list by display name?  Since the display name doesn't change, that should work, right?  I know that the SharePoint API has many ways of connecting to lists using the display name rather than the ID, so I thought there might be a chance that it would be possible in PowerApps as well.

Thanks.

[rsaikrishna]

@Jronash 

I am not really sure how many columns, their data types you are referring to.

But, I did a Proof of Concept. Created a simple list with 3 columns with data. Created a canvas app and placed an Edit Form on the app with default display mode is New.

Then, able to submit the data successfully. Now, I deleted the list and recreated the list. 

When I tried opening the app, obviously it failed loading as the original list was deleted. 

Then, opened the app in edit mode and deleted the list data source. Added the new list as data source. Did NOT make any changes to the form. As the new list contained all the columns, it worked as expected.

Everytime you delete the list, you MUST update the data source connection by adding the new list. The app won't be able to recognize the new list by itself. Also, you may need consider any heavy customization in the app. 

It is recommended to do a POC with your list to get confidence on this approach. Sometimes, some unknown GUIDs or references can cause the issue. Always take backup of the app and list before you do. 

Regards

Krishna Rachakonda

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[PaulD1]

You could try investigating the DevOps options for Power Apps. I haven't looked into DevOps integration, but there might be some way that you could automate your creation of the new list (PowerShell?) and return the GUID for the list and then update the connector in your PowerApp and republish. If it is possible at all it is likely to be quite complex so you'll need to weigh up the effort of implementing this vs manually changing the connection and republishing.

[Jronash]

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@PaulD1 wrote:

You could try investigating the DevOps options for Power Apps. I haven't looked into DevOps integration, but there might be some way that you could automate your creation of the new list (PowerShell?) and return the GUID for the list and then update the connector in your PowerApp and republish. If it is possible at all it is likely to be quite complex so you'll need to weigh up the effort of implementing this vs manually changing the connection and republishing.

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This sounds like a direction worth exploring. Since this is a process that will happen on a weekly basis indefinitely, I don't mind putting in some extra time up front if it means things can be automated.  I'll post back here if I find a solution that works for me.

[v-qiaqi-msft]

Hi@Jronash,

Based on the issue that you mentioned, do you want to update the SP list by deleting the whole items within it?

Could you please share a bit more about the scenario, do you want to connect a SharePoint list with its display name always?

If my understanding is correct, there is no way to achieve this in PowerApps currently. Every time you delete and recreate an SP list with the same name, you should read the new SP list if you want to save data. PowerApps could not automatically recognize the recreated SP list even though they have the same name. What's more, the SP list name would not be the same if you connect it to PowerApps. PowerApps automatically generates a new list name with a suffix character if you don't remove the previous connection.

If you would like this feature to be added in PowerApps, please submit an idea to PowerApps Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/PowerApps-Ideas/idb-p/PowerAppsIdeas

However, if your aim is to update the SP list by deleting the whole items within it, I think the Timer and the RemoveIf() function could achieve your needs. As an alternative solution, it will remove all the records from the SP list and you could create new items after that. Bu setting the Repeat property and the OnTimeEnd property, you could have a loop for RemoveIf().

I have this test, please take a try as below.

Add a Timer and set the OnTimeEnd property as below:

RemoveIf(SPlist,!IsBlank(ID));Refresh(SPlist)

Set the Repeat property of the Timer as below:

If(CountRows(SPlist)=0,false,true)

Set the Duration property of the Timer as below:

120000

Note: Based on the huge data set, you could set the duration as you want.

After that, it will remove 2000 records during the Timer operation every time.

Further, I do not know if there is something necessary that you have to delete the whole list to update. You can directly delete all the records within the SP list and refresh the data source in the PowerApps. Anyway, hope it could help you.

Best Regards,

Qi

[Jronash]

Still looking for a perfect solution, but I've narrowed things down a bit.

First, I looked into DevOps.  The idea of using an environment variable to point dynamically to a data source looked good initially, as I could access and modify that variable from PowerApps, Power Automate, PowerShell, and a variety of other places.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any way to dynamically set a data source, short of loading the entire data source into a table variable, which would be a bad idea considering how large my data source is.

If you are facing the same challenge and would like to be able to set data sources dynamically, please consider voting for this idea:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/Dynamic-Data-Source/idi-p/178095#M7015

So now it seems that my only option is to delete all items in the list rather than deleting the list itself.  The RemoveIf() solution from @v-qiaqi-msft works, but is slow.  If I have to remove all items anyway, it may make more sense to remove them using batch requests using the SharePoint HTTP action in Power Automate.  Still not ideal, but that would allow me to put the delete batches in the same flow that builds the new data.  I just have to figure out how to break those batches up into groups of less than 1,000 items.

[v-qiaqi-msft]

Hi@Jronash,

About that deleting the items is very slow, this is the limitation within the PowerApps and also the records exceeding 500 spend lots of time to be deleted.

Currently, only 2000 records could be delegable within PowerApps, if the limit is reached, there will be a problem with delegation. The Timer uses the loop to delete the records which do spend a lot of time. 

As I said before if there is not something necessary, you could delete the records within the SharePoint. In PowerApps, there is no way to directly remove the records exceeding 2000 in a short time. 

I hope flow could be more helpful for you.

If my solution ever helps you or solve your problem to some degree, please consider marking it as an answer to help someone who may have a similar issue.

Best Regards,

Qi

[Jronash · Accepted solution]

Thanks again for all the tips.  I ended up deleting the SharePoint list items using batch requests in Power Automate.  I'm not sure that it's any faster than doing it in PowerApps, but it allows me to do it in the same flow that re-builds the list, so it's easier to time it so that the list is incomplete for the shortest period of time possible.

I do wish that SharePoint could handle deletions more efficiently, or have an easy way to wipe out everything in a list at once, but that obviously has nothing to do with PowerApps.  It takes around 4 minutes to delete ~2,500 list items using batch requests - which isn't the end of the world but can feel like a long time compared to other data sources like a SQL database.