Search Functionality

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Posted on by ElizabethK

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Hello there,

I am building a PowerApp that does not have a datasource. It is being built as a job aid, with many different screens that pertain to different processes for a role in our department. Is there a way on the home screen to make a search function for all the text boxes within the app or is this impossible without using a datasource to search?

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Building Power Apps

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Drrickryp Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@ElizabethK

Without a data source, there is no way to save your data. You would have to create collections as temporary tables but the data would disappear when the app is closed. You would have to start all over again when the app is reopened. PowerApps is considered a front-end for a database as a user interface with the data stored in some kind of back end.

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RandyHayes 76,297 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@ElizabethK

Actually, just as an FYI...you can very well search what is in your app without a datasource. Search really searches tables. A datasource is a table, but, so is just a table.

If you have, let's say, 5 text input controls, then:

[TextInput1.Text, TextInput2.Text, TextInput3.Text, TextInput4.Text, TextInput5.Text]

Is a table of all the text input values.

So, Search can search that very fine.

ex.

Search( [TextInput1.Text, TextInput2.Text, TextInput3.Text, TextInput4.Text, TextInput5.Text], SearchText.Text, "Value" )

This would return a table of all the text that meets the search criteria.

So, bottom line, no, you do not need any datasource for your app, and your app can treat all the controls and information already in it as its table of data to use.

However...nothing is persisted. So if you have a need to persist any of the data, then a datasource is needed. If not, then the above is perfectly viable.

I hope this is helpful for you.

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BCBuizer 22,505 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Hi @ElizabethK,

I don't think this is a use case that will be easily implemented since you'll have to declare all controls and the associated information for any actions.

Let's say you have some TextInputs and you want to search their contents. The results should be displayed in a gallery where the user can select the result to navigate to the screen that has the selected control in it. The below formula is the Items property of the gallery for a scenario where you have 3 controls, each on their own screen:

Search( Table( {_Text:TextInput1.Text,_screen:Screen1}, {_Text:TextInput2.Text,_screen:Screen2}, {_Text:TextInput3.Text,_screen:Screen3} ), TextInput9.Text, "_Text" )

As you can see above, for each control you need to add an item to the Table(), so this has the potential to grow out of control.

However, if there's a will...

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RandyHayes 76,297 Super User 2024 Season 1 on at

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@BCBuizer

It's actually a great use case for a dynamic table variable! I did not go to that detail in the response, but it would work quite well.

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