Need to build a SIMPLE data-entry form a clerk can use to populate data into underlying SharePoint Table

[Anonymous]

I have watched hours upon hours of videos on YouTube (probably from many of you who post on this forum) and I still do not have a published form for my staff to use.  I am very frustrated!  Even the videos that proclaim to be "Basics" or "Beginning" have not answered my question.  Going into the underlying properties and parent/children etc. is fine once I have the dang thing created but why don't any of you show how to create a simple, blank Data Entry Form to feed the underlying table?  Please advise.

[RandyHayes]

@Anonymous 

What are you struggling with?

You can create a complete ready-to-go app from many places.  If you are looking at a SharePoint list, you can do it directly from in there.  Or, you can create an app in PowerApps and choose to use existing data.  It will give you a full framework app that functions to list, view and edit.

[Anonymous]

That is what I am doing - I have been watching your video "PowerApps Forms Plus" from the beginning and have not gotten past 40 minutes.  I have added a button for "New Record" and it opens a blank form so I'm making progress but the Date fields default to an arbitrary date 12/31/2001 I have no idea where it's coming from.  I need those fields to default empty so the clerk can enter the dates when creating the record.  I'm rewatching your steps again on the "Default" property which of course you stress is the "MOST IMPORTANT" aspects to learn.  And I'm not learning it!  I do better with a teacher that I can ask questions - I am not good at learning from static media like a guide or a video with no interaction in it.

[Anonymous]

Now I see the issue - I finally just noticed an error on my form and it is because of the extra fields which I removed during the "Edit Fields" part of your video that are actually required in the Data Source.  I removed them because I need them to actually be a "Tab" on this Form.  So Now I'll search for that part - to get the additional fields I removed added as a 2nd form or tab to this primary one. 

[RandyHayes]

@Anonymous 

Your initial post seemed to indicate that you had nothing going at all, but it now sound like you are relatively far along on getting things to work and just running into some frustrations with working with the forms.

My video on Forms plus is a definite good place to learn a lot about the forms, but I will admit that it requires some beginning knowledge. 

However, you are also now discussing splitting the form.  I would recommend my video on that topic as well.  It does also assume some basic level of experience with PowerApps, but it should get you pretty well underway.

Please feel free to reach out on here with any questions you might have.  Keep things simple and you will go far.

Happy to answer and questions.

[Anonymous]

Hi again - sorry to keep bothering you, but you're the only one helping me so far.  I went the simple route and just chose the "Customize Forms" option from the SharePoint List itself figuring it would all be automated perfectly and I could just put into production and then learn all the pretty bells-n-whistles.  WRONG!  Please see the attachment - I have all these little red X on various data cards telling me wrong data source.  HOW ON EARTH CAN IT BE INVALID DATA SOURCE when it was a wizard within SharePoint that did it?  I assure you I made not a single change to a single property.  It generated exactly like this.  That makes no sense to me on any level.   I have tried to do it again but I can't - the Customize Forms apparently only lets you do it once and I cannot find a way to delete this one to create another one.  I can't find a way to duplicate my List with a different name - I'm stranded.

[RandyHayes]

@Anonymous 

You're having a rough go at it my friend.  I am sorry that it is this complicated.  Usually, you had the right approach, doing a customize form in SharePoint will give you everything you need...ready to go...make pretty and then publish.

But here's the thing - something must have been changed.  That is not a normal "customize forms" look. Normally the screen is much thinner and there is no coloring or added button as seen in the image.

SO, if you only clicked on Customize Forms in PowerApps and saw that and did nothing else, then someone else has made this before you.

If you want to start from scratch, then go to your List settings in the SharePoint list, then click on Form Settings.  Set the option back to "Use the default SharePoint form"  and then you will see a "Delete custom form" option. That you can click on and remove the custom form so you can start all over.

Try that and then after deleted, click on the Customize in PowerApps again and it should generate a new "clean" app.

And, by the way, you are no bother - feel free to post and reach out as needed.  I'd love to see you past the initial frustrations and well on your way to building some awesome PowerApps!

[Anonymous]

OK, thanks for the above help - I have started over with a "From Scratch" PowerApps --> Customize Forms form; thinking everything would be automatically working ---->>> WRONG!  Please see my attached and advise how to fix the Data Source for my picklist (Choice) result type.  As you see in the attachment, all of the Choice fields have a red X error stating Invalid Data Source.  When I click the "edit in the formula bar", I have no idea what I'm supposed to do there.  Should it not have been automatically populated by the system when it created the form for me?  The other element types seem to be connected to the Data Source just fine.  It's a single SharePoint List with all of these fields.  

[RandyHayes · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous 

Actually, don't despair over this error.  This is a known issue within the editor in relation to choice columns.

If you look at the app checker, (stethoscope at top right) you will see that those are all listed as Runtime errors.  This means that the editor ran into problems loading them.  These are not errors in your formulas.

You can ignore them.  Or if they are bothersome while editing - just chick in the formula and then move away from it.  The editor will then re-evaluate the formula (from a runtime perspective) and it will go away.

So, bottom-line, this frustrates a lot of people, and it is a known issue that has been complained about for way too long, but it is not an error in what you have done.

[Anonymous]

🙂 Thank  you so much!