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Workaround for the lack of user-defined functions in PowerApps?

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Posted on by FG-11091158-0

Hi everyone,

I'm facing a challenge in PowerApps due to the lack of user-defined functions, and I’d like to know how others have worked around this limitation.

In my app, I have a search form that allows users to search for a record using different methods (ID, name, barcode scanning, RFID cards, etc.). Once the record is found in the dataset, I load it into an edit form.

The problem is that after loading the record, I need to perform multiple UI updates and validations. However, I don’t want to duplicate this logic in each of my different search routines. Ideally, I’d like to call a single function after retrieving the record to handle all the necessary UI updates in one place.

Since PowerApps doesn’t support user-defined functions, how have you tackled similar situations? Any best practices or workarounds you can recommend?

Thanks in advance!

NOTE: User Defined Functions are supported as 'experimental', so they are not safe for production environments

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Building Power Apps

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iAm_ManCat 18,228 Most Valuable Professional on at

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If you can't use experimental (hopefully it shouldn't be there much longer based on all the public blogs and news around UDF), then use a button or timer.

Then use Select(buttonName) if you went the button route, otherwise use variables to start/stop the timer.

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ronaldwalcott 3,847 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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What type of updates do you need to perform that would be managed by user defined formulas? Have you tried using named formulas and setting the parameters using global variables, therefore all the logic would reside in the named formula?

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developerAJ 4,628 on at

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You can achieve user-defined function (UDF) logic using buttons.

For example, if you want to add two integers as a UDF and retrieve the output, you can follow this approach:

Create two variables within a button: lvar_x and lvar_y, along with lvar_id (a unique identifier).

Store the output in a collection.

To use this logic:

Set the context with UpdateContext({lvar_x:10, lvar_y:15, lvar_id:25}).

Select the button, which will calculate the values and add them to the collection using:
Collect(col_sum, {id: lvar_id, Value: lvar_x + lvar_y})

Retrieve the result using Lookup(col_sum, id = 25).

This may not be the most conventional approach, but it could work to some extent.

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