Respond to a PowerApp or flow changing data structure in Power Automate

(0) Share

Report

Posted on by RobinHenriksen

102

Hello,

I have a problem with "Respond to a PowerApp or flow" in Power Automate changing my data on the input. I will illustrate the problem using picture from Power Automate.

My goal is to get the JSON data for my sharepoint list into my application.

My complete flow:

My Select:

Output from Select:

[

{

"Title": "Onboarding HR",

"Include": true,

"Complete": true

{

"Title": "Introduction to mentor",

"Include": true,

"Complete": true

{

"Title": "Introduction to buddy",

"Include": true,

"Complete": true

.... etc.

My Respond to a PowerApp or flow results:

Data:

{

"response": "[{\"Title\":\"Onboarding HR\",\"Include\":true,\"Complete\":true},{\"Title\":\"Introduction to mentor\",\"Include\":true,\"Complete\":true},{\"Title\":\"Introduction to buddy\",\"Include\":true,\"Complete\":true}, ... etc.

The input to "Respond to a PowerApp or flow"

As we can see the data changes from the output of select to the input of "Respond to a PowerApp or flow". The problem with this is that I'm unable to easily handle the data in PowerApps, as parseJSON don't work with the data "Respond to a PowerApp or flow" returns (but it does work on the data Select return). I'm aware of the Power Automate function "Response", but this requires premium connection which is not viable for my use.

How can I pass the data from my sharepoint list to PowerApps in a JSON format?

Categories:

Building Power Apps

All responses (5)

Answers (1)

Sort by

Verified answer

elver 26 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Hi,

I recently developed something similar. My entries come from a Dataverse table. I put the entries into a variable of type array and in the response action I'm using this expression to convert the array into a string:
[join(variables('myArray'),',')]
(I convert the array into a comma separated string and put this in square brackets.)

In my app I use this formula to put the flow response property "listofrows" into a collection:

ClearCollect(
colResults,
ForAll(
   Table(ParseJSON(resultMyFlow.listofrows)),
   {
      Title: Text(Value.Title)
   }
)
)

Works without problems for me. I hope it helps you.
RobinHenriksen 102 on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Thank you for your answer. However, this did not seem to work for me unfortunately.

My array is just one long string now with the correct JSON data, but is still automatically transformed in "Respond to a PowerApp or form".

I also noticed that this happens automatically when creating text variables in PowerApps.

I created a text input control and copied the JSON data into it. I could manipulate the data just fine when referencing the text input control like "TextInput.Text". However, if I write the data from the text input control to a variable it is automatically changes to have \ before every quotation ("). See the picture below.

It looks like using "Respond to a PowerApp or flow" works fine for Rezra Dorrani in regards to JSON strings in this video, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
https://youtu.be/FqfLiJDdC3Q?t=712
RobinHenriksen 102 on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Ok, I don't know what I did wrong before, but I tried to rewrite your PowerApps code again and now it works.

Thanks 🙂

Code:
RobinHenriksen 102 on at

Like
a
(0)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

It even works with this simple flow, so I really don't know what I was doing earlier.
elver 26 on at

Like
a
(1)

Report
Copy link

Link copied!

Good to hear. 🙂

A few more thoughts on this:
I don't know how important it is, but I would make sure that the input and output variables are of the same data type. The output from your Select action is an array (if I'm not mistaken) and "response" is of type Text. My feeling is that this is safer. I think it minimizes the possibility that there will be problems again after all.
For example: I have tried passing an array to a child flow, but a flow doesn't have an input variable of the data type Array. I've often thought that passing arrays or objects (simply using text as the data type) would work anyway, only to realize later that Power Automate doesn't like it.