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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Apps / Many-to-Many "Table" R...
Power Apps
Answered

Many-to-Many "Table" Referencing?

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Posted on by BenKraft 176
I interpret that Many-to-Many relationships mean that any one record of a table could reference multiple other records of another table, and vice versa. I have two tables, "Assembly - Operators" and "Assembly - Lines" and I've made a small model-driven app to create those relationships between them (operators are assigned to 1-3 lines).
 
I have successfully used lookups (many to one) in Power Apps, where I can reference a single other record from another, and I expected that many to many would be similar, other than that I would instead be referencing a selection of an auto-generated table of records instead of a column I created that contains a single record.
 
I have had some success in extracting the line record from single operator records, in galleries where their Items are set to something like:
 
 
I can even do things like:
 
 
This made me think that 'Assembly - Lines' can be referenced like a column, where it is a table associated with that specific record that hold the related Lines.
 
However, I'm running into a lot more issues when trying to use this in more complex ways, for example when attempting to filter the Operators by if they are related to a Line with the name "Z-MAX":
 
This seems counter-intuitive to what I am able to do with 'Assembly - Lines' in other contexts. Is there a better way to accomplish this?
Categories:
Building Power Apps
Microsoft Dataverse with Power Apps
I have the same question (0)
  • Gil0 Profile Picture
    Gil0 128 on at
    Hello,
     
    Using the 'in' operator within the filter function typically pulls matching results from Many-to-Many relationships.
     
    Filter(
    'Assembly - Operators',
    "Z-MAX" in 'Assembly - Lines'.Name
)
     
    If my response helped figure out the issue, please mark as resolved so it helps direct others.
  • BenKraft Profile Picture
    BenKraft 176 on at
    Hi @Gil0,
     
    Thanks for the help! Funnily enough, this is what I tried first. Delegation issues are something I try to avoid, so I've gotten into the habit of using the !IsBlank(LookUp([...])) convention. Unfortunately, I get the same error with this syntax:
     
  • Gil0 Profile Picture
    Gil0 128 on at
    No problem! Good thinking on delegation issues. 
     
    I just noticed that LookUp is being used with ThisRecord as the reference, which pulls a single row. LookUp requires a table reference. Since an operator is related to 1-3 line items, try this instead:

    Filter(
        [@'Assembly - Operators'],
        'Assembly - Lines'.Name = "Z-MAX"
    )
     
    It should return a table filtered with only the records related to Z-MAX.
     
    A dynamic approach, depending on what you're trying to accomplish with this function, would be:
     
    Filter(
        [@'Assembly - Operators'],
        'Assembly - Lines'.Name = ThisRecord.Name
    )
     
    Hope this helps!
  • BenKraft Profile Picture
    BenKraft 176 on at
     
    @Gil0 I'm not sure if I follow. When would 'Assembly - Lines'.Name ever be equal to a string? Would it not, at the least, be an isolated Name column from the sub-grid 'Assembly - Lines' table from a single record of 'Assembly - Operators'?
     
    In your second snippet, would ThisRecord not refer back to the Operator? I want the Line name tested for to be literal.
  • Ram Prakash Duraisamy Profile Picture
    Ram Prakash Duraisamy 5,877 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    Hi @BenKraft

    Can you give a try for below Code
      
    With(
  {
    LineOperators:
      Filter(
        'TableName',
        'Assembly - Lines'.Name = "Z-MAX"
      ).'Assembly - Operators'
  },
  Filter(
    'Assembly - Operators',
    OperatorId in LineOperators
  )
)
    Please mark as answer if my suggestion helps.
    Subscribe here for More Useful videos : https://www.youtube.com/@rampprakash3991

     
  • BenKraft Profile Picture
    BenKraft 176 on at
    @Ram Prakash Duraisamy Thanks for the help,
     
    I'm curious on some of the details on your provided snippet. What does/should 'TableName' reference? This feels like it filters the Operators twice. If  
    Filter(
    'Assembly - Operators',
    'Assembly - Lines'.Name = "Z-MAX"
)
    doesn't work by itself, I'm not sure how it would function within a With() statement.
  • BenKraft Profile Picture
    BenKraft 176 on at
    I've continued trying different methods; Is it really not possible to filter a table by properties of its records' relationships? Why am I able to access these related records for a single record individually but not within functions?
  • Gil0 Profile Picture
    Gil0 128 on at
    Hello,
     
    It should be possible to access another table's values based on the relationship from a different table. Also, I realize that I made a syntax error in my latest response.
     
    This is what my actual approach would be:
     
    Filter(
    [@'Assembly - Operators'],
    ThisRecord.'Assembly - Lines'.Name = "Z-MAX"
)
    The ThisRecord.'Assembly - Lines' portion should provide access to the 'Assembly - Lines' table properties as it represents the GUID, then .Name should further return the exact matching string values that contain "Z-MAX."
     
     
  • BenKraft Profile Picture
    BenKraft 176 on at
    @Gil0 Unfortunately, the field is still not accessible:
     
     
     
    However, even if the column was accessible, I'm not confident that snippet wouldn't result in another error; since the relationship is many-to-many, ThisRecord.'Assembly - Lines' references multiple records (in what I assume would be a table format), so using the dot accessor would result in a single-column table, which cannot be compared to a single string using "=".
     
    I want to also provide proof that the relationship exists since I realize I did not before:
     
    Thanks again for the help!
  • Ram Prakash Duraisamy Profile Picture
    Ram Prakash Duraisamy 5,877 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
     
    Yes first am filtering the record from the table and showing those records with another filter.
     
    Please mark as answer if my suggestion helps.
    Subscribe here for More Useful videos : https://www.youtube.com/@rampprakash3991

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