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[model driven] Why can't you select which form you want to use?

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Posted on by Naps

Hi,

Why does powerapps allow you to create multiple forms when in reality you can only use one? For example in the app designer > Forms > Main forms you can select which form you want. Except that function doesn't work. The only form that will ever show is the one that is assigned as the default form in the form settings.

Why even give the option if you are forced to use the default form anyway? Same goes for creating new data. Why can't I choose which form I want to use for that? Due to the very poorly designed way model driven apps allow you (or rather don't allow you) to display data, being able to use essentially only one form for everything makes it very difficult to create a sensible layout for users.

The longer I work with powerapps the more I find this product is extremely poorly designed. Everything takes forever to load, the UI/UX is rubbish and functionality wise everything is a work-around because even the most basic things aren't possible and you always end up having to settle for something that kind of works but isn't very nice to use.

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Mira Ghaly 11,413 Moderator on at

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Hi @Naps

The purpose of Model Driven Apps Multiple forms is that you can apply different security roles on different forms and hence users with different security roles corresponding to different actions they need to do can have a different form.

Users as well can navigate between the different forms if all forms are included in your model driven app.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/model-driven-apps/design-productive-forms?WT.mc_id=DX-MVP-5004221

Also you can use the form onload event to switch between forms on form Load , so if you wanna choose between different forms you can add a new field corresponding to the forms that you need the user to choose from and on the form Onload event you can use the JavaScript to switch between forms.

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donnylee 2 on at

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Hi.

Other than applying different security roles on different forms, you can also assign users to use different multiple forms. To access the multiple forms, after clicking "+New" on the active entity, there is a drop down list of multiple forms on the upper left of the page, just under the main heading of "New <your entity>".

Hope this helps.

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Owen Wetherow 69 on at

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Salesforce handled this concept with 'Record Type' by selecting the type of record the user was creating they could get a different form.

It forced the user to select the Record Type before showing the form

Microsoft uses a combination of Business Rule, Javascript and the Form Selector dropdown (I just found it for the first time thanks to @donnylee)

I wish that MS would extend the capability of the Business Rule engine to:

Switch Forms

Show/Hide Tabs

Show/Hide Sections

Show/Hide Components

I think this actually works better than Record Types as usually large chunks of the form are the same and it is easier to maintain if you can just show and hide components

I use Business Rules all the time for fields

I have used Javascript to show and hide Tabs and Sections, but this is very user unfriendly and to me it reduces maintainability of your application if you do it too much

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