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Odd trash prefix on my Person field from a SPO list

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Posted on by CU29072229-0

I have a simple canvas app using a SharePoint Online list as the data source. It seems to work well except for the Person field from SharePoint. It displays in the app with an odd prefix before the email addresses:
i:0#.f|membership|

It shows that same prefix for all the addresses. Either side of the word "membership" is a Pipe character.

The Person field is setup to only allow ONE name selected ("Allow multiple selections" is set as defaulted, to "No").

I would guess this is something SPO is storing in the list.

Another--perhaps related--oddity about this Person field in the app is that it displays as a drop-down field (like a choice field) but it IS a Person field in SharePoint. See the image attached.

By the way, perhaps you could also tell me how to have the app show NAMES instead of ADDRESSES. It is not a big deal but would be better.

Thank you in advance for anything you can tell me.

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Building Power Apps

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MS.Ragavendar 7,792 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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@CU29072229-0,

Instead of displaying the Claims change to DisplayName this change will resolve your issue.

✅If this helped, please Accept as Solution to help others ❤️ A Like is appreciated 🏷️ Tag @MS.Ragavendar for follow-ups.
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11manish 4,676 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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above suggestion is correct, i:0#.f|membership| prefix is not the problem — Claims is simply being displayed instead of DisplayName. Change the ComboBox's displayed field to DisplayName, and you should get the normal name-based People Picker experience.
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Haque 4,221 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hi @CU29072229-0,

The prefix i:0#.f|membership you see before the email addresses in your SharePoint Person field is part of the internal claims-based identity format that SharePoint Online uses to store user information. This is normal and expected in SharePoint Online, especially when using Azure AD authentication.

For example, if your Person field is called LastModifiedBy to show the user's name in a label or gallery, let's use:

ThisItem.LastModifiedBy.DisplayName //--For Name ThisItem.LastModifiedBy.Email //--For email.

To customize what is displayed in the combo box, you can set the ComboBox's SearchFields DisplayFileds properties to ["DisplayName"] so it shows names instead of claims or emails.

We have similar issues here (same kind but in Power Automate).

References:

Understanding Claim Format

PATCH A SharePoint Person Column

Copy SharePoint Multi-Person Fields

Claim based identity in SP

I am sure some clues I tried to give. If these clues help to resolve the issue brought you by here, please don't forget to check the box Does this answer your question? At the same time, I am pretty sure you have liked the response!
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Valantis 7,415 Super User 2026 Season 2 on at

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Hi @CU29072229-0,

On your second question, the dropdown look is expected, not a quirk. Power Apps has a built in Person layout template for the Combo Box control specifically for SharePoint Person fields. When a single select Person column gets added to a canvas app, it renders as a Combo Box using that template by design, same control family used for Choice fields.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-za/power-apps/maker/canvas-apps/controls/control-combo-box

Both things you noticed come from the same cause, it's a Combo Box set up for a Person field, showing Claims instead of DisplayName because DisplayFields isn't set to ["DisplayName"] yet. Fixing that (as above) also gives you names instead of addresses.

Best regards,

Valantis ✅ If this helped solve your issue, please Accept as Solution so others can find it quickly.

❤️ If it didn’t fully solve it but was still useful, please click “Yes” on “Was this reply helpful?” or leave a Like :).

🏷️ For follow-ups @Valantis.

📝 https://valantisond365.com/ 💼 LinkedIn ▶️ YouTube
CU29072229-0 12 on at

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Huh; that is the least intuitive thing I have seen in a week! But it works! BIG thank you!

I don't know why or what "Claims" means at all, since it is not a field name in my data source, and I do not understand how text IN QUOTES would be recognized as field names. I'm sure one day I'll wake up and it will "click" but thank you for the answer. 😊