Multiple Submissions with One Form

[RTW]

I've created a PowerApp that writes to SharePoint to record issues that our customers face. The issues are sorted into a handful of different broad categories and different lines of business can be the origin for an issue. One of the features was that the user should be able to log multiple types of issues for a given order with one submission.

-----------------------------
|   ORDER   | LOB  |  Issue |
-----------------------------
| 123456789 | LOB1 | ISSUE1 |
| 123456789 | LOB2 | ISSUE2 |
| 123456789 | LOB3 | ISSUE3 |
-----------------------------

I had a tight deadline so I found a quick and dirty solution. For every possible combination of issue and origin, there is a hidden form within the app. When the user fills out the main form, it populates the order number and any other columns (E.G notes), and then submits every subform that applies.

So, in this example, I determine that LOB2 has made a mistake cateorized under ISSUE2, and LOB 3 has done the same for ISSUE 1 and ISSUE3

The user will fill out the frontend form, which will look like this.

----------------------
| ISSUE  |    LOB    |
----------------------
| ISSUE1 | LOB2;LOB3 |
| ISSUE2 |    NULL   |
| ISSUE3 |    LOB3   |
----------------------

On the back end, it will looks like this

----------------------------------
| FORM  | ISSUE  | LOB  | SUBMIT |
----------------------------------
| FORM1 | ISSUE1 | LOB1 |  FALSE |
| FORM2 | ISSUE2 | LOB1 |  FALSE |
| FORM3 | ISSUE3 | LOB1 |  FALSE |
| FORM4 | ISSUE1 | LOB2 |  FALSE |
| FORM5 | ISSUE2 | LOB2 |  TRUE  |
| FORM6 | ISSUE3 | LOB2 |  FALSE |
| FORM7 | ISSUE1 | LOB3 |  TRUE  |
| FORM8 | ISSUE2 | LOB3 |  FALSE |
| FORM9 | ISSUE3 | LOB3 |  TRUE  |
----------------------------------

The result being that forms 5, 7 and 9 will all submit.

The problem is that we have identified 6 issues categories and 5 lines of business that fall under this app. This means that I have an array of 30 forms on the backend of the app. It doesn't seem to affect user performance but it makes making any changes to the app a pain. Even if I don't have to make any mechanical changes and just change the colour of something, it takes forever to load.

Any idea on how to improve this? I was wondering if there would be a way to first create a collection and then push that whole collection through to SharePoint?

Thank you in advance!

[v-monli-msft]

Hi @RTW ,

Sorry but I cannot say that I have fully understand what you are trying to achieve. Please take some screenshots of your app and then explain step by step. Besides, how many lists are included and could you give us the list data example with column names?

Regards,

Mona

[stormea]

Considering you are trying to do some behind the scenes data submission I would recommend you move away from the "chained" forms approach and instead try to utilize the Patch() function which can do data submission in a much simpler format than the Form component.

What you can do is have the main form that takes the data from the end user and then has a related "submit" button to call SubmitForm().Once that form is submitted successfully, you can then add a function to the form's OnSuccess property / event handler. 

Basic Patch() Usage

The Patch function is very handy because you can just pass a few arguments to it to update select aspects of either a new item or an existing item. The basic use of it would be:

Patch(
    'Data Source Name',
    Defaults('Data Source Name'),   /* this is to get the defaults to create a NEW item */
    {
        'InternalFieldName':"Value to Set",
        'OtherFieldName':"Another Value to Set"
    }
)

As the note implies this would be to create a new item (using the Defaults() function) in the data source with the set values being given within the "{" curly brackets.

Rough Idea for Your Use-Case

Given that you will potentially be submitting up to 30 forms, we will need to build some logic around the Patch() function in order to get it to work in your favor. I'm not able to discern from your message what the logic is for determining the sub-events to get created but this approach could still work for you.

1. Create a Collection - as you mentioned, however you determine whether or not to create the other "submissions", I would recommend storing these in a collection as the user makes selections on the form. What you end up with is a collection that looks similar to this:
   

   Collect(subList,
       {field1:"value",field2:"value",...},
       {field1:"value",field2:"value",...},
       {field1:"value",field2:"value",...},
       ...
   )

2. Use the ForAll() to Iterate over the Collection
   One of the best functions I've been using more and more is the ForAll() function. This allows us to iterate over are collection and apply a function or event to each row of that collection. In this case using the Patch() function, we can come up with something that looks like this:
   

   ForAll(subList,
       Patch(
           'Data Source Name',
           Defaults('Data Source Name'),   /* this is to get the defaults to create a NEW item */
           { InternalFieldName1:field1,InternalFieldName2:field2 }
       )
   )

3. Add the ForAll() function to your OnSuccess Handler
   So assuming that the collection of sub-items to submit will be handled as the user populates the form, then the OnSuccess handler can be set to use the ForAll(...) function we defined in step #2. After the ForAll(...) is when I would also add two useful / needed lines:
   

   Concurrent(
       Notify("The Data was Submitted",NotificationType.Information),
       Clear(subList) /* Important to clear the collection once the data has been used */
   )

   I put these in a Concurrent() function to make them run together but they can be put sequentially using the ";" semi-colon as well.

Hopefully that helps!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting in the community @RTW - can you review the above replies and update the thread if they were helpful?

Thank you,

@Anonymous 

[Drrickryp · Accepted solution]

Hi @RTW 

It seems to me that  you have a flawed design, ie. one table trying to represent relational data.  Please review my community blog posts as to how to better model your data.  Database-design-and-PowerApps-Step-1-Planning

[RTW]

@Anonymous , sorry, I havent really had the time to do a deep dive into this project recently so this fell on the back burner.

@stormea Thank you for this info. When I get some time to work on this I'll give this a go. I've been experimengint with ForAll() and Patch(), so I think this will be the way to go.

@Drrickryp I'm starting to be inclined to agree with you. While @stormea 's solution might be a good band-aid, I think I'm going to need to re-think this one from the ground up.

[Drrickryp]

I'd be happy to help you with that should you decide to go that way with the redesign.