Using a Power App as a template.

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Posted on 16 Dec 2024 13:35:42 by nshaw75

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I work for a large organisation and in my department we have many documents which we use over and over again. these are audit documents, or task lists. As an exercise to streamline the processes we have, I have been to try and streamline these tasks, automate them etc.

By using an automated system it will cut down on non value added activities, as well as being able to do these tasks on a mobile electronic device we will reduce paper/ink wastage. I have spent quite a lot of hours creating Power App templates to allow us to easily achieve. However when I come to use the template I run into so many issues.

For example I have just set up a Task List template which uses a datasource of a SharePoint list. There are only a few columns - Title (Text), Status (Choice), Due Date (Date Picker), Task Type (Choice). Priority (Choice) & Task Description (Multiline text).

I have a Gallery Screen and a New Task Screen. Using a SharePoint list template, the app works perfectly well. Tested many times to ensure all the functionality and it works fine. The trouble comes where I want to change the Data Source to an identical (Renamed) SharePoint list. Although changing the gallery is pretty painless and it is fairly straight forward to update to the new data-source, the New Task screen is far from easy. When I look at the New Task form there are so many more error flags and I am having to update numerous controls with the new data source. Even when I repair links to the new data source many of the controls do not work, especially combo boxes.

Is there a more round about way to tackle this type of problem. I am probably doing it all wrong. I would like to be able to delegate these tasks to guys within the team who are not very savvy with things like this.

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nshaw75 375 on 18 Dec 2024 at 19:43:01

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Using a Power App as a template.

Thanks @ronaldwalcott

I will have a go. It's was a nightmare creating the app hence why I wanted to set it up as a template. Once it is done though should be plain sailing
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ronaldwalcott 3,810 on 18 Dec 2024 at 17:51:27

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Using a Power App as a template.

The only way that I can think of is to create data sources with environment variables then remove the existing data sources from the application and replace them with the ones created with the environment variables. You will have to edit the application to remove the errors which will be generated.
nshaw75 375 on 18 Dec 2024 at 12:32:13

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Using a Power App as a template.

@ronaldwalcott Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Do you know if a solution with environment variables can be set up using an existing Power App. All the YouTube videos I have seen are using brand new apps to set this up. When the new app's data source is linked the data source/s are linked in the solution too. Whereas every time I try adding the pre existing app the data sources are not shown on the Solution screen. I have changed the setting to automatically create environment variables when adding data sources but this hasn't helped, or hasn't been triggered.
nshaw75 375 on 17 Dec 2024 at 07:00:11

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Using a Power App as a template.

Hi @ronaldwalcott , thanks for the reply. i will give it a look over.

Definitely looks like the solution to use the Environment variables, just going to have to watch some YouTube i think to learn how :).

Thanks again
ronaldwalcott 3,810 on 16 Dec 2024 at 15:57:02

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Using a Power App as a template.

You can probably use an environment variable to point to the SharePoint site and list so that the only change you have to make would be the variable.

See documentation at Use environment variables in Power Platform solutions - Power Apps | Microsoft Learn