How do I save data, concatenate text?

[Lmcginnis]

Hi,

I am building an app and need advice on, various things ..

1st, the best senario to save my data..

Senario,

Datasource = excel table(1)

Purpose, I have an excel sheet that has Site information, name/number/nearest ER/ER directions/ER phone/ etc...

1st page has combobox linked to data table, and I use a reference to it in many lables on other pages to pull up specific information that colleralates to that selection. 

I have pages setup and working that pull from the excel table(1) into lables displayed with the information I am asking from it.

On the following pages I have some text input, radial selections, checkboxes, etc that related to the work being done at the Site.. I need to combine this new information with some information I am pulling from my table currently, and some additional fields in my table into a page so that the data can be reviewed, (all at once, or broken up in sections peferably as my input pages are, scrolling labels I like 🙂

then,

I would then like to have that information saved to a different excel table(2) creating new rows for every entry.

Also to be able to save it locally, be able to reload it for reviewing before submitting, and then upload it to my excel table(2) .. incase there is no internet..

2nd problem,

I cannot seem to get MSN weather working at all using the table information from my combo box, what i have is 2 seperate columns, 1 for lattitude and 1 for longitude, I tried inputing both at the same time, I even created a new column in excel that is =concat(m2,n2) which are those 2 columns and merged them into one named GPS.. tho, i would like a space between them, but cant get that working either.. tried many things, like =concat(m2, "  ", n2) etc .. 

Currently,

Set( /* <-- Please use Set function to store the variable instead of UpdateContext function */
Weather,
MSNWeather.CurrentWeather(Concat(ComboBox1_1.SelectedItems, 'GPS'), "Metric").responses.weather.current
);
Navigate('Current Weather', ScreenTransition.None)

The button has and X, says invalid argument, expecting text value.. and doesnt work 😞

Additional help,

I have an msn weather help topic already, and I couldnt get it working.. but as I dive more and more into this I noticed it had a clearcollect, and as I an newb at this. I dont know if it clears all collected data, or just the one it's pointing to.. 

Can you have multiple collects going?

Thanks,

Lance <- Less then 1 week using powerapps, no prior experience, please help 🙂

Edit by @Mr-Dang-MSFT: renamed title to be more descriptive

[Lmcginnis]

Dang I forgot something,

If using collect will work for temporaily saving the information until I export it either local or online, how can I collect autopopulated labels? .. that are pulling information from a combobox linked to an excel table?

thanks again,

Lance

[Mr-Dang-MSFT]

Welcome to PowerApps, @Lmcginnis !

It looks like there's a few questions here:

• How do I save data? It sounds like you want to save information about the work done at different sites. Some keywords to search on this forum would include: Patch, new record, SubmitForm,
  • Adding in some folks who can share threads they've answered on saving data: @LRVinNC @ @timl @RandyHayes 
  • Can you share some screenshots or whiteboarding of what you're trying to achieve?
    
    
• How do I simulate offline experiences?
  
  • Here's how I do it:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j30xOM5OmRE
  • Big idea: attempt to save. If there are errors, collect what you were trying to save locally. Upon returning to connection, write all records back to the table. Remove the backed up records as they're successfully written. There's a link to download the example.
    
    
• How do I concatenate text for each row?
  • Concat will concatenate text across a table. So it'll put the content from one row beside the content for the next, and so on. I think in your case, you'll want a helper column--think Excel here.
  • Can you share what your table of lat long looks like? I want to be sure before I suggest something.
    • + @SanAndresMan1 and @edgonzales who worked with Lat Longs this weekend, though in another context 🙂

In the future, as a best practice, I'd separate each question into its own thread. This way you can give each one its own attention and you can have a more descriptive title.

+ @Anonymous 

[SanAndresMan1]

I don't know much of what you are doing, but here are a couple design issues that I see:

1. If I were the one building this app, I would load the content of the Excel table into a Gallery on my main screen, similar to what I have here:

Now, I am not suggesting you abandon the idea of using a combo box as I am not sure what your specific requirements are, but working with galleries are much easier.

NOTE: My particular Excel table contains 4 columns: City, State, Latitude, and Longitude

2. When the user clicks on the [>] button to see more details for the selected item, I have set the OnVisible event of the Detail screen to perform the following:

Set(
    CityWeather,
    MSNWeather.CurrentWeather(
        BrowseGallery1.Selected.'Latitude ' & "." & BrowseGallery1.Selected.Longitude,
        "Imperial"
    )
)

In this particular case, I have initialized the CityWeather object with the MSNWeather.CurrentWeather() response, passing in the Latitude and Longitude from the selected gallery item. Note that I do not use the Concatenate() function here as it's easier to concatenate text with & operator. Also note that Latitude and Longitude are separated by a period.

I added two fields: one to display the temperature and the other to display the dew point

The Temperature uses the following formula:

// Current Temperature
CityWeather.responses.weather.current.temp

The Dew Point uses the following formula:

// Current Dew Point
CityWeather.responses.weather.current.dewPt

Again, to me personally, is a matter of ease of design and implementation and I prefer galleries over combo boxes

Also, please remember, it's hard to troubleshoot an app or the code behind it when you don't let us see what you are doing. It helps to post pictures or code blocks to aid the rest of us with providing some guidance.

MG.-

Mariano Gomez, MVP

[timl]

Thanks for the mention @Mr-Dang-MSFT!

@Lmcginnis - hopefully, there's plenty here to answer your questions, but feel free to post back if you still have any specific questions. 

[Lmcginnis]

Ill work on getting some screen shots, maybe i can duplicate and clear my db and export the app, or just find a share public option to a clean version?

will also work on some of ideas presnted, and when I get sometime ill try to revise my questions into specific functions, that i can apply when needed...
This is a side thing, for saftey that is lacking at my job, im a tower climber, and i just stumbled across this powerapps thing on our office365 account 😕

thanks again for the help.

[Lmcginnis]

Here are the pictures of the current version so you can see what I'm doing, ofcourse I am updating the layout and options when i have time.. 

[Lmcginnis]

Update on trying to resolve weather issue,

I altered your suggestion thinking I can do it from the data I have been using, but it didnt work.

Set(
SiteWeather,
MSNWeather.CurrentWeather(
ComboBox1_1.SelectedItems.'Lat.' & "." & ComboBox1_1.SelectedItems.'Lon.',
"Imperial"
)
)& (Navigate('Current Weather',ScreenTransition.Fade))

[LRVinNC]

@Lmcginnis this community has a WEALTH of information, if you search for it.  As @Mr-Dang-MSFT suggests, pick a term you think is related to what you want to do and enter it in the search box.  Focus, in particular, on posts marked as having a solution (green check mark) as these are most likely to give you an "answer".  Often, I can piece together what I need to know by looking at several of these posts.

Here's a couple of my past posts that might be useful:

On Patch:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Discussion/Sharepoint-list-value-created-from-powerapp-o...

On writing to Excel:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/General-Discussion/Patch-Collection-And-Email/m-p/272835#M79721

And here's a question I asked and got answered on the relationship between Patch and SubmitForm:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Expressions-and-Formulas/Question-on-sequence-of-Patch-and-Submi...

Also, check out the YouTube videos from @Shanescows (search YouTube for Shane Young's channel).  They will give you step by step instruction on MANY topics.  Look over what topics he has available so you are aware of the resources available from him when you get stuck in the future.

[Lmcginnis]

Watching the video now, havent finished it yet...

But I'd like to save completed files to a phone if there is no internet, so they can be accessed if needed.

Maybe an option if it is possible, when the app starts it checks for saved files, compares them to entries online, and uploads them if doesnt exist?

Perhaps with just a couple of checks, like date/time/place ... no need to check every entry.

thanks.