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Filterable multi-selection field with data from another site - is this possible??

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Posted on by NickiPT

I want to have a simple customized SharePoint list form (not a custom Power App) that has a field that allows multiple selections AND ends up being a filterable column in the list but nothing I'm trying is working. I want the users to be able to go to the SharePoint list and filter the column results to find all people who are assigned a specific collateral duty, the values for which are stored in another list.

Lookup column: doesn't allow you to connect to a list outside of the current site; even when I'm trying to connect to a list on the same site this isn't working (see below)

Choices column: has to be prepopulated with values (right?)

Text column: only filterable if you have a single value

Multiple line text column: not filterable

We have a site with data standards lists on it and I want to be able to connect to those. I can do this without any issues when I need to only pull in one single value. Customized the list form in Power Apps, added data connections, added comboboxes, everything works great.

One of my data sources (Collateral Duties) can remain on the same site as my main list (Staffing Tracker) because it's only an internal data standard for my specific office so I figured I would use a Lookup column for this, set to allow multiple selections. However, it just flat out doesn't work. When I first go to the customized list form design in Power Apps, the combobox for the Lookup field shows "Item 1" through "Item 15" instead of the actual 45 values it should. Then when I unlock the card, the values then show up BLANK. Then I tried adding .Value to the end of the Items property so it equals:

Items: Choices([@'ORM-TODStaffingTracker'].CollateralsLookup).Value

Now THIS shows the values in the list and allows me to pick multiple. But I can't figure out how to further edit the Update property of the card to get these values back into the list or edit the DefaultSelectedItems property to display multiple values when the user opens an existing record:

Update: DataCardValue9.SelectedItems << This only submits back the last value selected

DefaultSelectedItems: Parent.Default

I've read so many different forum posts and nothing seems to work correctly for this requirement. I even tried adding the values for collateral duties to a multi-select Choices column because I was at my wit's end and now that the list form has been customized, that doesn't even work! Plus, I have no idea how I would ever get this to work if I actually needed to allow the selection of multiple values from one of the data standards lists we have on a separate SharePoint Online site!

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

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jatcube 508 on at

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@NickiPT these are just my 2cents but based on your post I think your requirements are way too complex for SharePoint Forms. It was specifically designed to be a simple add-on to the relevant list that it lives on. There's no way you will have smooth functioning across multiple lists and multiple sites. Heck, even the out of the box experience of filtering lists -only one!- can be clunky and unreliable at times. Not to mention, SharePoint is not a proper relational db, hence generally only suitable for simple things. Probably think about what you really need to accomplish here and maybe take a simpler approach?

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NickiPT 86 on at

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@jatcube - Thanks for your response! We aren't allowed to use Dataverse so we're stuck with SharePoint for our Power Apps data source. We wanted to have data standards that can be used across the organization so that's why they're on their own site with everyone in the org being allowed read access to those. We don't want to have to update 50 different applications manually when there ends up being a change like adding a new office to the organization. I guess we'll just have to keep struggling with SharePoint and end up getting multiple copies of the same data because we just don't have any other choice...

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jatcube 508 on at

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@NickiPT it makes sense now what you're saying. you can still use canvas apps though to connect to multiple datasources across multiple sites. However, I'd suggest you check out Content Services in SPO (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/managed-metadata). I know it's not like automatic enforcement, but the metadata would be centrally managed and any changes would automatically cascade down to all sites in the org and then users can use those in their libraries and lists. I'm sure your admins are happy to help with this.

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