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Advice around using SPO person fields

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Posted on by Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee

Hi All,

I have a canvas app form linked to SPO.

There is a section on my form, which needs to have up to 12 users, due to the limitation in using person fields (max 8), I'm not able to create all 12 fields as Person fields in SPO.

I've suggested to the stakeholder, I would create these as single line text fields, 12 of them, where a user can enter either the name or email address of the user.

But is it better to create 12 separate columns in SPO, or create 1 multiline column in SPO, and get the user to enter email address/names in the 1 field in the Power Apps form?

Is there a better way of doing this?

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eka24 20,925 on at

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I will suggest you separate the columns for Email and Fullname. The information could automatically be captured in the form and submitted to the sharepoint List.
Please check attached if that is what you want to accomplish
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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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hi @eka24
Are you suggesting it is better to create multiple columns in the SPO list?
I.e. Name1, Name2, Name3 etc with all of them being single line text fields?
Along with Name1Email, Name2Email etc. again all of them being single line text fields in my SPO list?

I guess another issue will be typos, when using a person field of course it pulls the info from SPO/AD, but this will be free text for the user to enter, I appreciate this is a workaround to the limitations of using SPO and Power Apps.

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eka24 20,925 on at

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Unless am not understanding you but in powerapps, enteries will not be free text in typos. You could use either a combobox or Dropdown to restrict what could be picked at any point in time without typing. Also I hope you looked at what I attached. It will be useful if you can provide a sample table (image) of what you want to achieve if is different from my attachment.

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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@eka24

Apologies, maybe I did not explain myself properly (yes I have viewed your image).
If I use a person field in SPO for all the fields that need to be person fields I will reach the limit of 12 lookup fields I can have when querying a SPO list from Power Apps.
In just this section I need to have 12 fields which will have a users name and email address each. Then the rest of the form has name, manager, etc fields, which I need to set as person fields for functionality.
To overcome this limitation I wanted to know how best to collate what the user will enter in my form, in this section, which can contain up to 12 user names and/or email addresses.
I thought by creating single line text fields I would allow the user to enter up to 12 Names and/or emails, and I wanted to know what the best way of achieving this was, by creating 12 single line text fields (but this means, when a user enters Mark Bright, there is a chance they will incorrectly spell a name as its free text) and another 12 email address single line text fields, to allow the user to type in MarkBright@email.com again issue is there will be typo with this approach?

I'm sure others have come across this limitation and want to know what the workaround is

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v-siky-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,

My understanding is that you are concerned about the mis-spelling of DisPlay Name and Email, right?
This is true because they are single-line text fields and require manual input. However, in PowerApps Form, it's not a big deal.
You can replace the Text box in DisplayName or Email Data cards by Combo box, and retrieve them by Office365 User function. Therefore, there is no need to manually input DisPlayName and Email, then Address your concerns.
Please check the steps.
1. Unlock the DisplayName Data Card, delete the Text box and add the Combo box in it.
2. Add Office365 User Connection, and set Combobox.Item: Office365Users.SearchUser({top:500}), set Fields to DisplayName
3. Modify the Card.Update: ComboBox1.Selected.DisplayName
4. Modify the ErrorMessage1.Y: ComboBox1.Y + ComboBox1.Height
5. Set Textbox.Default property of corresponding Email Data Card as below, then the corresonding Email field will be auto-generated.
If(IsBlank(ComboBox1.Selected.DisplayName),Parent.Default,ComboBox1.Selected.Mail)

Hope this helps.
Sik

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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hi @v-siky-msft

Thank you, I didn't know you could do that.
I've got some questions, I've done what you have stated, but in the comboBox is not a field I can type into, rather its picking up a bunch of records I presume 500 based on the formula, I get this:

The other issue are, when I select one of them some of there email addresses are not from my organisation, and secondly it's allowing me to select more than 1 user, where as I would ideally like them separated so, 1 selection per comboBox.
Because of your great suggestion I had a thought, when I select a user from ComboBox1 could I have another field populate there Employee number if its not stored in O365?

Thanks

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v-siky-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,

What does your first question mean?

To your second question, Set SelectMultiple property of combo box to false to male combobox to select only one.

Office365 Users function can only retrieve back users in your organization, so you have to invite external users as Guest into your organization, then you will be able to find it in the combo box. Reference: Add guest users to your directory

Another solution is to save all users and email addresses (including external and internal users) into a table, e.g. Excel or Sharpoint list, then bind the combo box to that table, it also can satisfy your needs.

Sik

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @v-siky-msft

What i was trying to explain, is that in ComboBox1 I am not able to search for a user, rather there is a dropdown and it seems I can only select from the users displayed in that dropdown.

Thanks I've set SelectMutiple to false and that worked for that question.

Saving all the users in SPO or excel is not an option, as I have around 40,000 users in the org, and it wouldn't be a static list, so impossible maintain.

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v-siky-msft Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @Anonymous ,

Ensure the IsSearchable property of combo box is true and set the SearchFields property to ["DisplayName"]

however, the Office365Users function can only retrieve a maximum of 999 users, this seems to be a dead end.

I just wonder if the users selected from Person field can satisfy your needs?

If so, You can Add a Person Field in the list as a reference field, so we can get all user's information from that column. and then save to each DisplayName and email columns.

Only two places need to be modified

1, Set Combobox. item property: Choices('SP list'.'ReferencePersonField')

2. Set corresponding Email Text box.Default:

If(IsBlank(ComboBox1.Selected.DisplayName),Parent.Default,ComboBox1.Selected.Email)

Please have a try.

Sik

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Community Power Pla... Microsoft Employee on at

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Hi @v-siky-msft
Yes if its only going to retrieve 999 names, this wont serve me any purpose.
I've created another person column in SPO, changed ComboBox1 Item property to your suggested formula, and set the email text box to your suggested formula, that seems to work, but allows me to only enter 1 user account and then when I want to enter another I need to 'x' that username which removes the email address from the email text field

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