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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Pages - Design & Build / Copying metadata betwe...
Power Pages - Design & Build
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Copying metadata between forms, duplication

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Posted on by JB-10040341-0 17
Hi there.
 
I've got a multistep form with a lot of customisation on it. 
 
When im halfway through creating the record, and want to edit it again, I have to bring it an edit form, which is essentially a 1 for 1 copy of the create form, except that its in edit mode instead of insert mode.
 
Have i missed something? Is there a way to avoid all this unecessary work?
 
 
  • Suggested answer
    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 9,315 Most Valuable Professional on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
     
    I am glad my content is being helpful ☺️☺️, I haven't done any blog post in ages, need to get back to it 
     
    Lately I've been using the plug-in approach to update the SessionID in the main "application" record, but the Web API also works and is a great approach if you don't mind exposing the table via API.
     
    Regarding the form duplication:
    • for the Multiform Step step - I normally have only 1, what I do is from step 2, I remove the previous option (within the form step configuration), so basically the 1st step is the insert, and every other step is an update
    • this approach ensures that whenever the user continues from where they stopped, they are already in the editable form, and not insert
    • for Basic Forms I normally duplicate, afaik there is no work around for that, sometimes the metadata can be different as well, for example if you have a subgrid or notes against the record, you need those metadata in the Edit version and not the Insert version
     
  • JB-10040341-0 Profile Picture
    JB-10040341-0 17 on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
    @oliver.rodrigues As an aside, do you know a way to avoid duplicating basic forms (and their metadata)? Like using the one basic form for both editing and creating?
  • JB-10040341-0 Profile Picture
    JB-10040341-0 17 on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
    Amazing! Thanks Olivier. By the way your blog has been great for helping develop with Power Pages. It is a labrynth.
     
    If anyone comes across this, that video helps a lot. I took a very slightly different approach.
     
    I also put a column in the table to store the session id string.
     
    Then in the second step of the form, i automatically call the webapi with a PATCH to store the value in the column.
     
    The critical part is that multistep forms use the 'sessionid' query parameter to determine which session you load. So in your list, you need to rig the 'edit' button so that it goes to:
     
    /<multistep form url>/?sessionid=<session id stored in row>
     
    instead of 
     
    /<multistep form url>/?id=<row id>
     
    You can set up the list to chuck the id into 'sessionid' in the list configuration, but you still have to replace that ID manually. 
     
    Thanks a bunch!
  • Verified answer
    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 9,315 Most Valuable Professional on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
    In this video I cover a solution for that
     
  • JB-10040341-0 Profile Picture
    JB-10040341-0 17 on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
    It has multiple steps.
     
    Yep users can have multiple records each.
     
    And yeah i want them to pick up from where they were. Like they can select the record they were working on, and start editing it again.
     
     
  • Suggested answer
    oliver.rodrigues Profile Picture
    oliver.rodrigues 9,315 Most Valuable Professional on at
    Copying metadata between forms, duplication
    Hi
    - is your multiform step a single step or several steps?
    - do you allow multiple records for the same user?
    - what you want is basically users to continue from where they stopped, is that it?

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