Submit Dynamic Gallery

[JMatheus]

Hi you all!

I have learned so much from this community but never submitted any posts.

I'm having trouble patching data from a Gallery into a Data source. Both from Sharepoint Lists.

Gallery source structure: QUESTION | CHOICES | FILTERS

Data source structure: RESPONDENT | QUESTION A | QUESTION B | QUESTION C (and so on)

The thing is that my gallery is built dynamically from its source based on the filters.

Therefore I can't hardcode the collection to Patch() it up on my data source.

So I'm trying to transpose the collection so it matches the columns on the data source.

But I can't figure out how.

*The values on the QUESTION column match the names of the columns on Data Source.

Any help/insight is most appreciated.

Thank you!

[RandyHayes]

@JMatheus 

Can you provide a little more context on your scenario?  Perhaps a screenshot would be helpful as well to fully understand where you are trying to go.

[JMatheus]

Okay.

I'm trying to make a canvas-app that works as a quality checklist.

It has 02 screens:

01) list of checklists (display all my checklists from tbAnswers)

02) checklist itself (display all questions filtered by type of equipment from tbQuestions)

OnStart() of the second screen I create a Collection of Questions filtered by type of equipment and display them on a Vertical Gallery to be answered.

I don't use a Form control cause I need to dynamically populate my checklist (I have a separate UI that adds new questions to tbQuestions).

I collect all the answers from my gallery view into a collection as follows:

Question | Answer

QA | Yes

QB | Yes

QC | No

...

But I'm having trouble using patch() to update the main table tbAnswers, cause the structure of tbAnswers is:

ID | QA | QB | QC....

# | Yes | Yes | No

Both tables are Sharepoint Lists.

Thank you in advance.

[RandyHayes]

@JMatheus 

I have a general idea of what you are doing, but I am hesitant to provide any formula samples as I am not getting the structures you have for collections.  You show that you collect the answers from a gallery, are each of what you show on separate lines different records in the collection, or are they part of the record schema of each record?

My general thought would be to completely skip the collection as you don't really need one and may just provide more confusion. 

So, being general again, I would set the Items property to the Filter of the tblQuestions datasource to give you all of the questions you want.

I assume that you are trying to "patch" the main tblAnswers table with the values of the selections in the gallery and that you are doing this on some sort of user click of something - most likely a button.

In that case, I would simply iterate through the gallery.allitems and Update the tblAnswers record based on the selections.

Getting the values into the appropriate columns will not be pretty, but it will be manageable.  The primary question on that would be, what is the connection of the Question in tblQuestions to tblAnswers?  Is it the name of the question?  

Now, before I go too far off of the track from what you are trying to do, am I in the right ballpark as to your intended goal?

[JMatheus]

@RandyHayes, you understood it perfectly.

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My general thought would be to completely skip the collection as you don't really need one and may just provide more confusion. 

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Perfect. I will skip it altogether and work with Item filters.

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Getting the values into the appropriate columns will not be pretty, but it will be manageable.  The primary question on that would be, what is the connection of the Question in tblQuestions to tblAnswers?  Is it the name of the question?  

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That is exactly what I'm having trouble doing.

Each value on tblQuestions.Question is unique and is the same as one of the columns on tblAnswers.

That is my connection between them.

I do have a button to update tblAnswers with the selection from gallery.

My latest try was something like this:

Patch(tblAnswers, bgChecklist.selected, colAnswers)

But the structure of both records doesn't match. Therefore I tried using a Forall to create a record similar to the one I have on tblAnswers, but I wasn't capable of doing it.

Please, what is your suggestion to get the values of selected answers on the right columns?

Thank you in advance.

[RandyHayes]

@JMatheus 

So, as I see it then, you have a Gallery with tblAnswers as the Items property.  

You have a tblQuestions list that has a relationship to the Answers list based on a relation to the tblAnswers list.

I am not sure what that relationship is.  My remaining questions are - tblAnswers has a list of answers to questions that have come from tblQuestions, so:

- what is the relationship between the two? Is the ID in tblAnswers the Question ID from Questions?

- Are you only updating Answers?  I saw no mention of creating Answer records, so I am assuming there is only updating going on.

Also:

- What is it in your gallery that indicates the response to an answer? Checkbox, dropdown, etc.

- Your samples show Yes or No for question values - are your columns Yes/No

- Is your datasource SharePoint or what other?

Sorry to throw a bunch of questions to you, but want to get you to the right solution.

[JMatheus]

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Sorry to throw a bunch of questions to you, but want to get you to the right solution.

I'm glad you are willing to help, I really appreciate it.

Let me give you an example and I think it will make things easier.

tblQuestions:

Question	Prompt	Choices
Clean	Is it clean?	Yes | No
Color	Is it the right color?	Yes | No
Shape	Is it the right shape?	Yes | No

tblAnswers:

ID	Clean	Color	Shape
1	Yes	Yes	Yes
2	No	Yes	No
3	No	No	No

The check button will get the status of tgQuestion on each card and update the record on tblAnswers.

Reference to the record: bgChecklist.selected

We can narrow it to only updating but further on I'll have to create new records.

I'm thinking of patch with default values and update them.

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- What is it in your gallery that indicates the response to an answer? Checkbox, dropdown, etc.

- Your samples show Yes or No for question values - are your columns Yes/No

- Is your datasource SharePoint or what other?

---

Only toggle controls.

All of them are one line text.

Sharepoint lists.

Hopefully I could express myself better.

Thank you.

[RandyHayes]

@JMatheus 

You are providing wonderful details...now, the next 2 questions that popped out of that:

1) Is it to say then that all of the question choices are column names in the tblAnswers list?  In other words, if another checklist has "Size", "Smell", "Taste", does this mean that your tblAnswers list has a column for Clean, Color, Shape, Size, Smell and Taste?

2) Is bgCheckList from some other place?  I assume the ID in the tblAnswers correlates to some ID in the bgCheckList gallery and not to anything in the tblQuestions?  Assuming, based on the bgCheckList option selected, that you get the appropriate question list and then ultimately, based on the click of the check icon, that you update the corresponding item in the answers list.

[JMatheus]

@RandyHayes 

01) Yes. All of the questions are column names in the tblAnswers list

02) Yes, bgChecklist is a Gallery, and as you said I click (select) the item that I want to update.