Ben Prins – Consulting and developing on SharePoint

PowerApp Search and Filters

November 1, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

In PowerApps we often show lots of information and a good PowerApp will provide the user with the ability to find the relevant data quickly. We can do this by providing the user with search and filter capabilities. Therefore it not a surprise to me that I get many questions about searching in PowerApps. In this blog I will show various examples of search and filter solutions. I created a small PowerApp to support all the examples.

Small PowerApp

Create a SharePoint list called FAQ with the columns Title and Priority as a single line of text.
Create a Canvas PowerApp.
Connect the PowerApp to the FAQ list.
Add a gallery and connect it to the FAQ list.
Create a dropdown control for the filter.
Create a text input control for the search box.
Create the PrioFilterOptions on the OnStart of the Home_Screen.
```
ClearCollect(PrioFilterOptions, "", "1", "2","3")
```
Connect the PrioFilterOptions to the dropdown control.
Add the following items to the FAQ list.
- Title: Question 1, Priority: 1
- Title: Question 2, Priority: 2
- Title: Question 3, Priority: 3

Filter using contains

The most frequently asked question is; How can I search using contains? It’s possible to search like this by using the in operator. In all my examples I will be using the in operator.

Filter( Table, value in Field )

Filter with a search box

A search box is a text input control, we can use this control as a search box.

Filter(FAQ, Home_Search_Inputbox_SearchBox.Text in Title)

Filter with a dropdown

Filter(FAQ, Home_Search_DropDown_FilterPrio.Selected.Value in Priority)

Filter with a searchbox and a dropdown

This example has a little issue, after selecting a dropdown value you can no longer filter only by using the search box. If you select the empty value then the filter will use that as a filter value.

Filter(FAQ, Home_Search_DropDown_FilterPrio.Selected.Value in Priority && Home_Search_Inputbox_SearchBox.Text in Title)

Filter with a searchbox and a dropdown (when not empty)

In this example the user is able to ‘deselect’ the chosen option from the dropdown. I recommend always using this example when using a dropdown filter.

If(IsBlank(Home_Search_DropDown_FilterPrio.Selected.Value),
Filter(FAQ, Home_Search_Inputbox_SearchBox.Text in Title),
Filter(FAQ, Home_Search_DropDown_FilterPrio.Selected.Value in Priority && Home_Search_Inputbox_SearchBox.Text in Title))

SharePoint Online: Custom Search Refiner Display Templates

October 10, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

The Refinement Panel is a solid part of almost every classic search solution. In most cases we can configure the selected refiner perfectly by changing the settings, but not always. Fortunately we are also able to change the display template per selected refiner and create our own custom Refiner Display Templates. In this example I created a custom display template with the following customizations.

Removed the first two characters of the filter option.
Made the refinement panel wider.

More information about display templates in general can be found on MSDN Display Templates.

Create a custom Refinement display template

First we need to make a copy of the default refinement display template, the name of the display template is Filter_Default.

Navigate to the filter display templates: Master Page Gallery / Display Templates / Filters.
(http://your-site/_catalogs/masterpage/Display Templates/Filters)
Copy the HTML file Filter_Default and give it a new name for example: Filter_Custom.html
Remember not to copy the JS file, this will be created automatically.
Update the Title field of the display template.
Open Filter_Custom.html in your favorite editor.
Remove the code which is not needed.
- I removed rows 33-201 and 209-229
- Note that this might be different for you

Solution for removing characters

Find the following code.
```
<div id='Container'>
```
Find the following div located below the previous one.
```
<div id='Value' name='Item'>
```
Between these divs add the if statement that shortens the shown filter options.
Note that is does not remove the show all items feature.

In my example I remove the first 2 characters.

var refinementNameShorter=refinementName;

if(refinementName!="All")
{
    refinementNameShorter = refinementName.substring(2);
    refinementNameShorter = refinementNameShorter.substring(0, refinementNameShorter.indexOf("|"))
}

Solution for wider refinement panel

Find the following code.
```
<div id='Container'>
```
Inside this div is the following div located.
```
<div id='Value' name='Item'>
```

Change this into the following code.

<div id='Value' name='Item' style="width: 500px;">

Configure the refinement panel

Open the page with the refinement panel
Select by Display template the newly created Filter_Custom

Code result

PowerApps: Use a SharePoint list for PowerApps Styling

September 3, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

When developing with PowerApps we often want to store information in a SharePoint list and access the information in the PowerApp. The three main reasons are to store the styling code, settings or just for data storage. In this post I will explain how to connect a SharePoint list to PowerApp and use it for the styling of the PowerApp. You will have a central location to maintain the styling of one or multiple PowerApps.

Connect to PowerApp

Create a SharePoint list called PowerAppStyling with the following columns.
- Title (single line of text)
- Setting (single line of text)
Activate versioning on the SharePoint list.
Create a PowerApp.
- In my example I created a PowerApp from a SharePoint list.
Click on the tab View followed by Data sources.
Click on Add data source.
Click on SharePoint (for me the last option).
Select the correct site or provide the URL and Click on Go.
Select the the list and click on Connect.
The list is now connected and can be used in the PowerApp.

Use for SharePoint list for styling

We need the styling as soon as the PowerApp starts, so we need to store the styling in a collection when the PowerApp launches. If you can avoid creating collection on startup do so. You want the PowerApp to laod as quickly as possible. In the SharePoint list add the required styling code. You can use the following example.

Open the PowerApp.
On the first screen, find the OnStart action.
Create a collection called Collection_Styling to store the PowerAppStyling datasource.
When accessing the styling code, always get it from the collection. This is faster than accessing the SharePoint list.
Create a label called Label_Style_Example.
Set the Text to This is my style.
Set the font color of the label.
Set the fill (background) color of the label.
Set the border color of the label.
Set the border color of the label.
The label will now look all black because the Collection_Styling is still empty, the PowerApp has not been started yet.
Run the PowerApp and see the result, sometimes you need to restart the PowerApp multiple times.

SharePoint: New experience page in classic site

August 16, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

A customer wanted to use a web part, on a classic site page, that is only available for new experience (modern) site pages. This is not possible to do, we can however create new experience (modern) site pages in a classic site. I don’t recommend this often because the design of the pages are not equal and might confuse the users. In this post I will explain how you can do this.

Solution

Open the site pages library of your site.
Open the advanced settings of the library.
Select by List experience the option New experience
Open the site pages library and create a new site page in the library.
The page will be a new experience page.
If required set the List experience the option back to Classic experience.

SharePoint: why you cannot Save Site as template

August 7, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

There are two reasons why you might not be able to save a site as a template. In this post I will explain what the reasons are and how you can figure out what is causing your problem. The first reasons is that the publishing feature is activated and the second reason is that custom scripts are not allowed.

1. Publishing features activated

The most common issues is that the publishing feature is activated on the site or on a parent site. If you are trying to make a template of a subsite this will not work when the parent site has an active publishing feature.

Open the site settings
Click on Manage site features
Check if the publishing feature is active
Do this also for possible parent sites

‘Solution’ for subsite without Publishing active

I have never run into problems when using this method for subsites. However be careful it is not supported by Microsoft for a reason.

Create the following URL for you specific site
[SiteURL]/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx
or
[SiteURL]/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx

Truely not supported ‘solution’ when publishing is active

I don’t recommend using this so called solution, you can run into all kinds of issues. I do however want to mention this because you can find this all over the internet being claimed as an actual solution.

Create the following URL for you specific site
[SiteURL]/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx
or
[SiteURL]/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx

Second truely not supported ‘solution’ when publishing is active

I also don’t recommend using this so called solution, you can run into all kinds of issues. I do however also want to mention this because you can find this all over the internet being claimed as an actual solution.

Open the site settings
Click on Manage site features
Deactivate the Publishing feature
Create the following URL for you specific site
[SiteURL]/_layouts/savetmpl.aspx
or
[SiteURL]/_layouts/15/savetmpl.aspx

2. Custom Scripts are not allowed

If publishing is not activated, it is possible that custom scripting is not allowed on the tenant level. You can see in the SharePoint Admin Center if its allowed or not. If you don’t have permission to do this you can also check it by using the following method.

Open the site settings
Click on Manage site features
Do you see the following options? Then custom scripts are not allowed.
Do you see the following options? Then custom scripts are allowed.

Solution to allow for custom scripts

Open the SharePoint Admin Center in the Office 365 Admin Center
Click on Settings and go to the Custom Script section.
Choose “Allow users to run custom script” for Allow users to run custom script on personal sites and Allow users to run custom script on self-service created sites
Click OK.
It might take up to 24 hours before you can now save the site as an template.

SharePoint Online: File move and copy for modern document libraries

July 16, 2018 Ben Prins SharePoint

In the blogpost SharePoint Online: A few new features I briefly talked about the then new move and copy file feature. Microsoft release an update to extend the capabilities and making it even more useful. This update give you the ability to move or copy files anywhere in SharePoint with version management and metadata protection! Meaning that versions and metadata will be moved/copied with the file. The move and copy feature is very useful after or during a migration, users typically will restructure and move files to new locations to make better use of the new environment. During and after the migration project we did for Vestia users where able to quickly move files to new locations. You can read (in Dutch) all about the project on www.Macaw.nl

Move/Copy details

When moving or coping files to a different location the metadata will only be preserved if the destination by matching the column names. If there is no match then the metadata will be lost.
When you use data governance labels to control information policies for retention or records management those must exist in the destination location. If the destination does not support policies the move/copy action will be blocked. The move action will also be blocked if the version management settings are not the same in the destination.

Move files in Office 365

Select one or more files
Click on the Move to button
Select the destination location.
Note that you can select OneDrive and any SharePoint Site you have access to.
If your destination is not on the short list use browse sites to find it.
Click on Move here to move the file of files.

Copy files in Office 365

Copy files works exactly the same, beside selecting Copy instead of Move.