Uploading specific files to a SharePoint library from Power Apps Portal and updating the file’s metadata of the SharePoint library

[MJ6]

Hi All,

I would like to make sure that the user uploads the right number of files and the right file type to the right place.

Example of file’s type

• Letter of motivation
• CV
• Copy of diplomas
• Copy of identity card
• …

SharePoint library

File’s type	Name
Letter of motivation	xxxx_xxxxx.pdf
CV	xxxxxxx.pdf
Copy of diplomas	xxxxxxxxx.pdf

I managed to expose a SharePoint library on a portal but for the following steps, I'm stuck (displaying the right columns of the library, asking the user the type of file he uploads, updating the file’s type metadata of the ShPt library, limiting to one file per file type, checking that all files have been uploaded...)

Do you have any ideas, tips on how to solve this use case?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Michel

[chleverenz]

Hi @MJ6 ,

that's a hard one 🙂

In my opinion, you can not give any data to specific files. What you could do is to enable notes and force the user to give a description for the specific attachment to a note. But as it will be text the user could type in anything.

Have you tried the following: upload the data to cognitive services and let the services judge, whether the stuff looks like a cv, a list of skills, a recommendation or whatever?

Recently, I saw this _very_ short introductionvideo https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/MBAS-Gallery-2020/Introduction-to-AI-Builder/td-p/579297 . Well, they use it for invoices for example to find out the customer numbers and things like that. But in principle it should be possible to classify the documents. The result of the classification could be stored in a custom entity with a link to the created applicationentity (or whereever the attachments belong to) and an entry for every document. May be, you could also move the attachments to a costum entity with the classification results. I think, here power automate could help out.

I have no idea how to integrate, may be somebody here has some experience on that, but i think one could really improve the user experience: instead of forcing the user to add your metadata, let the system find out. And if the system thinks, something is missing, you could still show a page like "please confirm, that document xyz ist your cv or something like that. and store the result in a custom entity. If you use a custom entity to store the attachments, you could show a list with a menu (starting a workflow power automate) to let the user state, what the specific document is, this could also be very user friendly.

This specific usecase sounds, as if the users will be honest as they want something from you. So, they will upload the requested documents.

So, only my weird ideas about that as i have no clue to solve it in standard 🙂

Hope it helps you finding a solution and i would really appreciate if somebody could repoort about his experiences with the integration of some kind of cognitive services within portals,

  Christian

[chleverenz]

Sorry for the spam, came just to my mind:

If you know the number of attachments to expect, you could also create a textfield for each attachmentname and use a weform to step through the process. The first page is about the applicants data like name, email, phonenumber, whatever.

Submitting brings the user the the next step only showing a text, that the user should upload his cv there and a hidden entityform (just place a div in the liquid around the used entityform with style="display none") just with the created textfield for the cv-filename for example. You provide a little gluecode to the attachmentupload in the change event: whenever the user adds a file to the uploadercontrol, you write the filename in the hidden entityform. When the user submits, the file will be uploaded and the hidden form will be saved and you know the name of the filke which contains the cv.

And depending of the number of fields, you generate just more steps.

This is not that user friendly, but could do the job as well.

Again, sorry for my unclassified thoughts,

  Christian

[v-xida-msft]

Hi @MJ6 ,

Do you want to upload files from your Portal to your SP Library?

Do you also want to update the file's metadata of your SP Library from your Portal?

If you want to upload files from your Portal to your SP Library, you need to integrate the SharePoint server to your Portal firstly. Please check the following article for more details:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/portals/manage-sharepoint-documents

If you also want to update the file's metadata of your SP Library from your Portal, I afraid that there is no way to achieve your needs in PowerApps currently.

Currently, updating SP Library file metadata properties is not supported in PowerApps Portal. If you would like this feature to be added in PowerApps, please submit an idea to PowerApps Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/idb-p/PowerAppsIdeas

Best regards, 

[MJ6]

Many thanks to Christian and Team _ Kris Dai for your help.

I have already integrated a ShPt library on the portal (attached file). I would like to investigate this possibility further before considering other options. The objective is to stay as much as possible on a solution out of the box.

I would like to display on the portal other columns from the SharePoint library, such as the file type, adding a field (list of items ideally from ShPt's term store) in order to allow the user to enter the type of file he is downloading. Finally updating the ShPt library with this information.

[v-xida-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @MJ6 ,

Based on the needs that you mentioned, I afraid that there is no way to achieve your needs in PowerApps currently.

Actually, the Documents Section in your Edit form is connected "Document Location" Entity (which would be generated once you integrate your SP Library to your Portal successfully). Currently, we could not enable "File Type" column in Views or Edit form of "Document Location" Entity.

If you would like this feature to be added in PowerApps, please submit an idea to PowerApps Ideas Forum:

https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/idb-p/PowerAppsIdeas

Best regards,

[MJ6]

Thank you for your answers.

I have submited an idea to PowerApps Ideas Forum:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Ideas/Uploading-files-with-its-metadata-to-a-SharePoi...