Combine 2 fields and insert the result into another field when the record is saved

[AHCSWildFrog]

Hello

I am an Microsoft Access developer who is trying to wrap my head around some power app functionality, or lack there of, and need to be able to take 2 user entry data fields and concatenate them together and then insert that data into another field when the user hits the save button and causes the onsave action. Coming from Access I know that this should work the way I need but I am having issues with understanding a few things about how to get this to work in power apps.

First, is there a particular library that I need to connect to the form for the events? I was expecting a huge list similar to the one that Access has for all its objects but all I see are onsave and onload for the form, onchange for the fields and ontabstatechange for the tabs. Is there a way to get more of the event handlers?

So the next problem is on the onsave event I want my 2 fields, FirstName and LastName, to be concatenated and then be "inserted" into the FullName field. How is this done?

[WarrenBelz]

@AHCSWildFrog ,

I too used MS Access as my "weapon of choice" for over 15 years, but have not gone back there since I stated using Power Apps 6 years ago. Other than your last question, it is a bit hard to answer - the solution to that is to make the Default of your FullName Text Input

ThisItem.FirstName & " " & ThisItem.LastName

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[AHCSWildFrog]

This may sound really dumb. Where do I put that? I cannot find a property or something to put that in. I have tried it as an event on the last name field on change and tried to inject the value. Like this: 

wfs_Name.value(ThisItem.wfs_FirstName & " " & ThisItem.wfs_LastName)

But it seems that all my old tricks don't port over well. 😄

[WarrenBelz]

Hi @AHCSWildFrog ,

In the Default property of the Text Control containing FullName.

[AHCSWildFrog]

Ok...

Where?

Is there some kind of "background" place to set all the "properties" like in Access?

[a33ik]

Hello,

It seems you are playing with Dataverse and Model Driven Apps. In this case to rely on the formula you should recreate the "Full Name" field and create it as "Formula" field. You can see more information here - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/data-platform/formula-columns?tabs=type-or-paste

[AHCSWildFrog]

Ok, so... After researching and digging through a lot of stuff, CoPilot tells me that my Model driven app requires me to use a business rule to set the default value.

I assume that there are huge differences between a canvas app and a model driven app?

Which is better? Why would they use different methods for setting a default value? Don't they store the data in the same place? Dataverse?

[AHCSWildFrog]

So I created a business rule to do this task. Here is the rule.

It "works". 

But that isn't really the result I want or need. I am going to play with the thing but any help in understanding how to make this work would be greatly appreciated.

[a33ik]

As I mentioned earlier the best solution for you will be either:

1. Create a calculated field:

2. Use "Formula field":

Here is the result:

Good luck.

[AHCSWildFrog]

So how would I edit a field after the fact? The Full Name field is a primary column. Is there anyway to do make that change to the column?