Using Copilot with filter

Open a running app that uses a gallery against SharePoint.  If you have a premium license, then you will see an adorner on your gallery.

Copilot supports three kinds of queries – filter, sort, and search.  While you can type any query you might like, it suggests possible questions based on your data in your app at the time.

Copilot then scopes the records to satisfy the query. It displays a “Filtered” badge in the upper right corner of the gallery.  The exact query that was executed is displayed as a tag. And you can continue to refine your query with additional details by adding more query commands.

Filter, sort, and search galleries with Copilot to filter provides five key benefits:

• Copilot makes end users more productive and saves time. If an author has not built in search and sort capabilities, Copilot enables this scenario and makes them more productive. End users save time with the ability to directly express their query in natural language.
• Copilot saves author’s development time. Authors save time developing apps because they don’t need to develop all the UI controls necessary for the app. Instead, they can rely on Copilot for this functionality.
• Copilot enables queries over the full query result – not just what you can see in the gallery. Users can filter, sort, and search on fields even if the application doesn’t provide UI controls for these tasks. For example, you can search for records even if the application doesn’t have a search bar.
• Copilot is query safe. It only generates queries that can be run on the server. Authors don’t need to worry about whether or not their queries can be delegated.
• Copilot keeps private data private. It only works with the data that is normally returned to the application. It doesn’t access fields that aren’t returned to the app in a gallery/grid or form.

Getting started

Choose a build after 7.4 (expected on 7/29) and make sure you’ve also re-published your app on 7.4 or later. Then access your app while it is running. (Copilot with filter only appears at runtime, it does not appear inside of studio.) Select an item in the gallery to start using Copilot with filter.

See the documentation for this feature for more details. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/user/smartgrid

The post Use Copilot to quickly filter, sort, and search canvas app galleries with SharePoint lists appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

What are Virtual Tables?

Virtual tables connect to existing data outside of Dataverse allowing Power Apps and the Power Platform to treat it like local data. If you have a list that stores all of your product data in SharePoint, a virtual table lets you access that data within an app and also provide relationships between Dataverse tables and the SharePoint lists. You can even use your custom Power Apps code to make changes directly in the source, just by using the APIs that Dataverse provides.

Virtual Table Components

Virtual tables require connectors and connection references in order to authenticate to the data source and allow Dataverse to speak to the connection. If you are building a virtual table manually, you need to build plug-ins to allow the Dataverse and source APIs to communicate, set up a connector, set up a connection reference, register a service principle with Azure to allow authentication, and then finally build the table.

Why are Virtual Connector Providers important?

Virtual Connector Providers make the process of creating virtual tables easier. If you use a Virtual Connector Provider, Dataverse does some of the work for you. You will no longer need to:

• Create Plug-ins for APIs
• Create Service Principles
• Search for which tables or lists are compatible in your data source

All of these steps are handled for you!

Entity Catalog

The Entity Catalog will provide you a listing of every table or list from a connected data source that can be used for creating a Virtual Table. This reduces the creation time by eliminating the need to search for the exact table or list names in your source. The catalog is created automatically once you connect to the Virtual Table source.

Note: If you have used the virtual connector provider for SQL you may notice some changes. Creating the virtual entity source no longer requires details like Client ID and GUIDs as this is managed by Dataverse.

When is this available? NOW! Feel free to try it out. Check out our online documentation for more details.
Important note: At this time there is a required step to download and install the Virtual Connector from Appsource. This will not be needed in a few weeks from now. Since this is temporary it is not included in the video walkthroughs. The process for doing this is covered in the online documentation.

Also, you can watch 4-minute, step by step videos for each virtual connector provider:

Create a Virtual Table for SQL with the Virtual Connector Provider
Create a Virtual Table for Excel with the Virtual Connector Provider
Create a Virtual Table for SharePoint with the Virtual Connector Provider

The post Announcing New Data Sources for the Virtual Connection Provider appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Query / filter operations using complex objects in the past were subject to the delegation limits of (500 – 2000) records since the filter operation was performed locally.  Now these query operations will be performed on the back-end SharePoint server and will not have these limitations.

If you have an existing application that is currently limited by the 500-2000 record limitation that uses complex objects, open the app, save it and republish it to make use of this new capability.

In addition, we have updated the documentation to reflect that while DateTime and Date values are still not yet delegable, a null value can be delegated  for a DateTime and Date field.  See the  SharePoint connector article for more details.

The post SharePoint delegation improvements appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

How do I see attachment upload in action?

To enable attachment upload you need to have an app with forms that connect to a SharePoint list as their data sources.  Alternatively you can create an app from data from a SharePoint list data source on the new app screen in PowerApps.  Then, to enable attachments you need to:

1. Select the forms that you want to add attachments to.  It is the Edit form that will have the upload functionality, but you’ll likely want to add attachments to the View form (a.k.a. Detail form) as well.
   
2. In the properties pane, click on the Data field to open the data panel.
   
3. In the list of fields, find the Attachment field and enable it.  Note that if you have an existing form with the Attachment field enabled, you’ll need to disable and re-enable it to get the new functionality.
   
4. Save and publish your app.  When you run the app and open the above form, you’ll see the Attachments control that allows you to add new files by clicking on the Attach file link (newly added files are shown with a clear background) and delete existing files by clicking on the “X” beside the file name (files marked for deletion are shown with a disabled gray background).

   

Remember to save your form in order for the attachment changes to be persisted back to SharePoint.  For a big studio picture of the above steps, see the image below:

Limitations

In sync with our philosophy of releasing a minimum viable product and incrementally improving it, there are some limitations in this first release of upload functionality of the Attachments control that we’ll be looking to address soon:

1. Attachment upload only works with SharePoint list data sources.  We’ll be adding support for other data sources incrementally, starting with CDS.
2. Upload and delete only work inside a form.  We’ll be looking to add support for the standalone scenario outside the form within the next couple of months, but for now the Attachment control will look disabled when in Edit mode and not inside a form.
3. You can only upload files up to 10 MB in size.  Due to performance issues we had to impose the hard limitation which we’ll be looking to increase within the next month.

In the upcoming releases we are planning to enable the control to take attachments from other controls inside your app (such as a signature from a Pen input control) as well as allowing you to view some of your attachments such as images inside the app.  I’ll be blogging about those features as soon as they’re available.

New control features

The app maker can limit the maximum number of attachments in a single control (MaxAttachments property), as well as the maximum file size of each attachment (MaxAttachmentSize property).  For more details on control properties, see the control documentation.

Feel free to leave you comments below, but for constructive discussion on how to use the control, we recommend the PowerApps forums as a better option.

The post Add attachments to SharePoint lists appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

The Solution Goals:

The app that Paul has built is delivering a feed of information from several different SharePoint lists, consolidating only relevant information for the consumer as an “activity log” or information gallery. In common business scenarios these feeds can be used to share news and announcements, manage project task assignments or completion, and can even be used to monitor eating patterns, or emotions in medical or fitness scenarios. This type of app is often appreciated in the collaboration space, as it helps users share and discover relevant information snippets. My favorite part is the clever use of search results (see more on Result Sources). I remember when we first started using the Content by Search webpart to configure our search results on SharePoint (that stuff was huge for us). Amazingly, I believe that was only 2 or 3 years ago (now well known as the “CBS” webpart)! Today, just imagining that level of precise relevance in search results as a source of app data really impressed all of us over here!

Paul shared a screen shot of his daughters sample app (since the production app was confidential). It’s an adorable ‘Cat-alogue’ activity feed app. Huge kudos and thanks to his brilliant daughter Ashlee! 

Activity Logs have loads of uses though! Imagine the following scenerios where having an activity feed from multiple data sources or lists would be beneficial:

• News and Announcement Feeds in SharePoint lists (the ones we see on the home pages of communities for instance)

• Event Planning Activities (pulling data together into a single app such as registration stats, speaker planning, progress on room logistics, hotel and car discounts, etc.)

• Punch List Comments and Follow-ups (where different roles are logging comments on final punch list items for project completion)

• Yammer Feeds Associated with SharePoint Data or Documents (data mash up of related content from SharePoint and Yammer, or SharePoint and Slack)

• Support Response Feeds (showing only responses involving the current consumer of the app)

• Cross-Group Project Request Activities (combining project health factors: scoping, schedule, and cost adjustments)

• Issue or Problem Management (composite info on problems, with investigation notes, related tasks and/or document comments)

• Fitness Activity Log (with food, exercise, and workout journals)

• Psychological Activity Feeds such as Mood Logs (to view activities, circumstances, or conditions around the time of the mood logged)

• Vehicle and Equipment Maintenance Logs (showing types of maintenance across several categories: repair, reoccuring maintenance, decommissioning, etc.)

​Another example Activity Feed UI in PowerApps:

Components:

​​Paul’s solution starts on a very straight forward Power User level, and then is built upon to demonstrate how easy it is to extend solutions using Pro Developer extendability options. The components of the solution were:

• SharePoint List Data
• A custom SharePoint Search Result Source
• An Azure Function (via PowerShell)
• A PowerApps Custom Connector

Paul’s Blog Postings on CleverWorkarounds.com:

Part 1
Part 2
​Part 3
​

Video Demonstrations and Walkthroughs:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

You don’t want to miss checking out each of his blogs, and giving this a try in one of the many scenarios possible (the sky is the limit). I enjoyed every minute of reading them! Feel free to connect with paul_culmsee on private message or below in the comments for more details. Let us know where you see opportunities to use this methodology, and please share your own app stories in the app gallery, or video gallery, as soon as you can!

Happy PowerApping!

Audrie (Audrie-MS)

The post Learn to Build Activity Feed Apps for SharePoint Lists Using Search Results appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

For this example, we will start with a simple SharePoint list, which is a custom list used to track service requests.

We can create a custom form for this list by using PowerApps > Customize forms, but the default generated form will use the same form for creating, showing or editing an item. We are going to customize the form further by creating separate forms for the three scenarios.

Step 1: We are going to click again on “Customize” from the default form to launch PowerApps Studio.

Step 2: Once inside PowerApps Studio, We are going to duplicate my FormScreen1 twice to create three screens in our app.

It is easier to duplicate the screens rather than create them new as it will set the DataSource, Item and OnSuccess properties of the forms correctly.

Step 3: Let’s rename the screens & forms so they are easier to use in formulas.

Step 4: We now need to set the formulas to show the different forms when actions are taken by the user. We are going to select the SharePointIntegration control and set the formulas to navigate to the screen and set the form in correct mode. We are going to also create a variable “SharePointFormMode” which we will use in Step 5.

To achieve this, we set the following formulas on SharePointIntegration control:

• OnNew – Set(SharePointFormMode, "CreateForm"); NewForm(CreateItemForm); Navigate(CreateScreen, ScreenTransition.None)

• OnEdit – Set(SharePointFormMode, "EditForm"); EditForm(EditItemForm); Navigate(EditScreen, ScreenTransition.None)

• OnView – Set(SharePointFormMode, "ShowForm"); ViewForm(ShowItemForm); Navigate(ShowScreen, ScreenTransition.None)

​Step 5: To handle the form submission and reset correctly, we update the formula for OnSave & OnCancel. We use the variable created in Step 4 to decide which form to submit or reset.

We set the following formulas on SharePointIntegration control:

• OnSave – If(SharePointFormMode="CreateForm", SubmitForm(CreateItemForm), If(SharePointFormMode="EditForm", SubmitForm(EditItemForm)))

• OnCancel – If(SharePointFormMode="CreateForm", ResetForm(CreateItemForm), If(SharePointFormMode="EditForm", ResetForm(EditItemForm)))

​Step 6: We can now customize each form differently as we want. We can change the number of fields shown on each form or add helpful text on each screen.

Step 7: To finish, we Save and Publish the form, then go back to our SharePoint list and try the different scenarios to see three different forms now:

With those 7 steps, we now have different forms to create, show or edit the items of our list.

As a next step, learn more about custom forms or understand how the integration works. Also, engage with us and other users in PowerApps community.

The post SharePoint custom forms: Build separate forms to create, show or edit the list item. appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Note: These changes are rolling out incrementally for SharePoint First Release tenants and are not generally available from SharePoint yet. So, if your tenant is already on first release, you should already have them and if your tenant is not on first release, to enroll please follow the instructions here.

Custom SharePoint list forms with PowerApps

You can now use PowerApps to build customized SharePoint forms. PowerApps supports many of the scenarios that organizations addressed with InfoPath, and lets you take advantage of new cloud-first, mobile-first, connected capabilities to create custom forms and digital experiences to transform business processes.

Almost any user can use PowerApps to customize the default forms for viewing and editing SharePoint data. The customized SharePoint forms can take advantage of the full capabilities of PowerApps – no code connectivity to over 160 data services such as Office 365, Dynamics, Salesforce, Box, Twilio, and Mail Chimp. These forms run embedded directly in SharePoint, providing a native and friction-free experience for users

Learn more about custom forms and how to customize your list in our documentation.

Multi-select support for Choice, Lookup & People columns

You can now also use choice, lookup & people columns in SharePoint lists that have multi-select enabled on them. If you are dependent on managed metadata, we will have support for that as well soon.

If you create new forms or apps connected to a SharePoint list, they will detect and automatically enable multi-select for supported fields. For existing forms or apps, just select the multiselect cards for your fields on the form.

Read-only attachments support

You can now also display attachments connected to your SharePoint list item in PowerApps by simply enabling the attachments field on your form/app. We know that upload of attachments from PowerApps is an important scenario and are working on enabling it soon.

Please join the conversation in the PowerApps community as we would love to hear from you about how you are using these capabilities and what you would like to see added in the future.

The post Announcing availability of custom forms, multi-value choice and read-only attachments support for SharePoint with PowerApps appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Planning Day 1
(took about 2 hours) – On the Friday before the Microsoft Inspire Conference

Sketching…

I usually start by storyboarding my app project using either paper and pencil, or PowerPoint. The key for me with storyboarding is that I don’t want to be distracted by software. It should be very easy to mock up my thoughts without having to hunt and peck through menus. Therefore, paper and pencil will work best unless I need to share the design with others for concensus. In the later case, or where the mock up may iterate, I use a PowerPoint template which has only 2 to 3 slides.

Slide 1: This is a slide that can only have 5 bullets maximum, and it defines my Minimal Viable Product (focus on ‘viable’ and not on minimal). Since, I can sometimes overthink things, this is how I scope myself for the build. In this case my 5 bullets were:

Slide 2: This slide is all about how I want the end user to experience the app. I will sketch out what they should see on the first screen, and what they should see if they select something. Remember that this doesn’t have to be a perfect mock-up. Accept the fact that you may get new ideas while building your app, and that iteration is often on the road to innovation.

Feasibility…

The next step is to determine feasibility. This is where I create a list of features that I map to controls and formulas. I start by building out my event calendar in SharePoint. I finish prepping my data by setting permissions on the calendar, as I can trust that PowerApps respects SharePoint permissions. To determine feature feasibility, I’ll have a quick hallway chat with potential app users to get an idea of what they would like to be able to do. Finally, to check technical assumptions, I will open a blank app and play around with control configurations to be sure I know how  to meet the requirements. At this point I am not worrying about the ‘look’ of the app yet, just the functional requirements. For example: figuring out what I need to do in order to ‘add the calendar event to their calendar’. Sometimes this leads to me doing a bit of research using the Reference Formulas , or the documentation on connectors. I’ll update my sketch based on what I learn in this step.

Design Folder…

I like to create a single folder where I store all my “design” components, or dependencies. I’ll create a single design folder on my desktop, and then stuff it full of fun media. If you’re wondering where I get my design ideas: I search for ideas using Bing search, or from Pinterest. I look for app designs that are close to what I’m looking to do, and then I modify my inspirations to meet my business requirements. For example, one of my favorite places to get icons is in PowerPoint or Outlook. Both applications have a recently released feature called “Icons” in the insert menu. You can find tons of easy to use (and to recolor) icons there. After adding them, just right click on them and save them as an image. Then you will upload them as embedded media in your app. I also add a single text file to my design folder with: 1) color palette selections with their RGBA equivalents, 2) the list of URLs for SharePoint, and 3) required connections FYI: I’ll often prep an app file with the connections already added, saving a local copy to my desktop for offline builds (see this blog for offline configuration here). Completed design shown below:

Draft 1 App Build – On the flight coming back from the Microsoft Inspire Conference

The Build…

Due to the great conversation I was having with Archana on the flight to the conference, I decided to build my events calendar app on the way back. The build was relatively easy, just pulling elements from my design folder as I tackled by app build screen-by-screen. Check out the video below for an overview of how I did this app (here is a link to my design notes with all the formulas/functions):

Known issue: Currently when you connect to a non-custom list in SharePoint Online, you must type the name of the list into a text input box (shown below). Therefore, the name of the SharePoint list must match exactly what you type.​ Please remember to tell site owners about this as well, because if they change the list display name then your app will break. The key here is to note that the app is connected via the list “display name” rather than the internal name when you make this connection by typing, rather than by selecting the list name. Internal names are referenced for all other connection types.

I hope this helps you to plan and create apps more quickly using PowerApps. It always amazes me how quick, and beautiful, our apps can be with just a little bit of planning, and a few ‘creative’ touches inspired by our consumers!

Enjoy!
Audrie

P.S. To learn more about how Microsoft fosters Diversity & Inclusion check out this site. http://approjects.co.za/?big=diversity/default.aspx

The post Building an Internal Event Calendar App in Flight appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

Custom forms for SharePoint lists

You can create visually rich, well formatted forms using PowerApps for SharePoint lists. From the SharePoint list, you will see a “Customize with PowerApps” option to launch the PowerApps authoring experience in the browser. Once published, the rich forms will be embedded within the SharePoint list and available to all users of the list.

Screen Explorer for managing controls

PowerApps Studio will include a Screen Explorer to view the list of controls in the app. Every control can now be selected by choosing them on the screen explorer. The screen explorer removes the hassle of selecting hidden or overlapping controls. Of course, you could always switch back to the tile view that exists today.

Note: Screen Explorer will be available for app authors connecting to all data sources including SharePoint

Options panel to configure control properties

The Options panel on the right of the design canvas will light up the frequently used properties for every control. Simply select the control in the screen explorer and start configuring the properties using the options panel without the need to write expressions.

Note: Options panel will be available for app authors connecting to all data sources including SharePoint

Embed PowerApps in SharePoint pages

PowerApps can be embedded as SharePoint Online web parts. You will be able to browse and embed PowerApps in SharePoint. You can get started today by using the Content Embed web part outlined in this post. We will be rolling out more enhancements to this experience going forward.

Summary

PowerApps is excited to have built this experience enabling SharePoint users create business apps with zero code. We will also be adding support for images, attachments, and managed meta-data with SharePoint Online.

We expect to roll out functionality incrementally in the coming months and would love to hear your feedback.

For more details on how PowerApps and Microsoft Flow enable zero code business process apps in SharePoint, please watch our Microsoft Mechanics video:

The post PowerApps and SharePoint – the next wave of creating and running apps appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.

You can embed any PowerApps app on a page and we think the possibilities here are endless. Here is a page where I have embedded an app so service technicians don’t need to go outside of SharePoint:

To achieve this, we use the Embed web part capability on the SharePoint page and add the app as an iframe content.

The iframe code I am using above is like following. Please refer to this post where I talk about how to generate the src Uri for your app.

<iframe width="1024px" height="768px" src="https://web.powerapps.com/webplayer/iframeapp?source=iframe&screenColor=rgba(104,101,171,1)&appId=/providers/Microsoft.PowerApps/apps/[AppID]" />

Notes:

1. I suggest using the width and height property to set the content area to your app’s aspect ratio, it will ensure that there is no grey background area around your app and your page looks visually rich.

2. Depending on your SharePoint site settings, you may get an error that embedding content from PowerApps website is not allowed. To work around this, please work with you site administrator to add “powerapps.com” is the list of allowed domains.

This is not the final version of this capability but rather the first step in the journey, we will make this experience much easier to use without the need to manually create iframe, src Uri or using web parts.

Please let us know your feedback and questions on the PowerApps forum.

The post Embed PowerApps on SharePoint Pages appeared first on Microsoft Power Platform Blog.