Dynamic Collection Name

[JR-BejeweledOne]

Is it possible to use a dynamic value as the name of a collection?    I have a need to take a collection of items from a single column table and create an individual collection for each item.   The selection of items is not static and the number of items is also variable.

I was hoping to use the item name as the name of the collection.

[RandyHayes]

@JR-BejeweledOne 

You cannot do that in PowerApps.

However, you certainly can put a table within each record of your first collection which would be the items associated with that item.

I hope this is helpful for you.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

I suspected as much but wanted to be sure.    I already have that as the regions being selected for each item are a multi-select combo box.

The issue comes in later.   Each item in the main collection can be associated with all regions or some regions.   What I am wanting to do is to go through the collection after all the items have been entered and create individual collections for each region that contain the items specifically associated with that region AND the items that are associated to all regions.   The individual collections will be used for other operations later in the app.

I am hoping to not have to implement Power Automate for this if I don't have to.

[RandyHayes]

@JR-BejeweledOne 

So if you already have it in your combobox, why aren't you just using that information directly?  You don't need collections to collet what you already have...just reference the combobox.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

I hate to seem ignorant, but in some respects I am when it comes to this. 

I still would need to create individual collections for each region and without knowing in advance how many regions, differs depending on the country, how do I set the name for the new collections being created?

[RandyHayes]

@JR-BejeweledOne 

What I am suggesting is why do you need a collection anyway?  You already have what you want in the combobox, you can just refer to that to get the information you need.

There is really no need for collections in apps unless you need an in memory manageable database...very rare!  Unfortunately everyone wants to use them and a lot of the examples out there overuse them.

If you can provide some information on the formula for the Combobox, perhaps I can expand a little on it.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

Here is my challenge.   It's not so much a matter of using the information in the app itself although there is a process where I would need to do that, but balancing the usability aspect vs. how the information ends up in the repository.

I could set it up so that the user has to create an individual (duplicate) item for each region, which is prohibitive as there can be as little as no regions or many as 20 individual regions in a country and each country will have anywhere from 7 to 20 items in the collection.  Each user might be responsible for just a few countries or a large number of countries.

Our receiving repository is flat, so an item needs to be created for each country/region combo on the back end, this process should be invisible to the user.

So as you can see my challenge is how to process the collection.   Can you do a nested ForAll?, that would seem to be an equitable solution, but if you can't then how would I accomplish the goal?

For the ultimate in usability, I would 'like' to be able to present the region choices with an additional choice of 'All'.   This would allow the user to select all without having to individually check each region.    That may not be possible, but it if is, I would like to be able to do that.

[RandyHayes]

@JR-BejeweledOne 

You're overcomplicating a little bit.  All of what you mention is easily done in PowerApps without all the collections and concerns.  However the approach you are taking on it is relatively programmatic - which PowerApps is NOT.

My point is that you mention you already have a Combobox with information in it.  You have already done some formula to get those results.  That is your source!  Use it! It already IS a collection!

If your record structure of the Combobox is something similar to this below, then you already have the information you need:

{
   Region: "someRegion",
   Countries: [
          {CountryName:"someCountry1", somemoreinformation},
          {CountryName:"someCountry2", somemoreinformation},
          {CountryName:"someCountry3", somemoreinformation}
       ]
}

This means now that anywhere else in the app, I can refer to the combobox selectedItems property to get any of the countries selected from the region.  There is no need to create another collection of that information as it is already there.

That was why I was asking about the Items property for your combobox.

The above, based on a formula, is completely dynamic and would have only the selected regions and their associated data.  So in reference to your original question about dynamic names (which you can't do), you can get all the information about the "someRegion" in the above based on the combobox items.

This works very well and eliminates all of the extra waste of collections, variables and even dealing with Onxxx actions.

In my suggestion what I am stating is that the combobox is already a table of records and values - creating another collection based on those is not needed.  And it is already dynamic.  Collections are not dynamic and involve constant rebuilding to keep accurate.

So give me some formula examples where you think this would be an issue.

[JR-BejeweledOne]

Unfortunately it's not.

The data sources are (filtered lists):

Countries - Single column table

Regions - 2 column table, region and country

Holidays - 3 column table, holiday, country and association

Country is a lookup column for both Region and Holidays.

And your example wouldn't work, as you would only get a single country from a region.   These regions are specific to the country.   For example we have 15 regions in Germany that include Bavaria, Berlin, Saxony etc.  and in Canada it's Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario.

When adding a holiday to the list for a country that has regions associated with it, the user needs to select the region(s) the holiday is applicable to.   It might be all regions or it might be one.

You are right about my thinking though, coming from an InfoPath, Nintex and PowerShell background I do tend to think of things programatically. 

[RandyHayes]

@JR-BejeweledOne 

Right on...try to check the developer "baggage" at the door, it only confuses things in PowerApps.

So, you have a Combobox that most likely has then an Items property of Regions

I would suggest a change to that of:

AddColumns(
    Regions as _region,
    "Countries", Filter(Countries, region=_region.region)
)

Now your combobox will have not only the Region but also the associated countries.

This will give you, as I showed with the previous record structure, the Region and ALL of the countries associated with that region.

Now I am not sure where you go from there as you say "when adding a holiday to the list..."  What does this mean?  Sorry I am obviously not as intimated with your app and app flow as you, so otherwise I would say "do this then this".

If you can shed some light on what happens next, I could give more details.