Microsoft Power Platform Low-Code Services
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On a phone, a header with two text buttons leaves little room for the title. The modern Button has a Layout property, and ButtonLayout.IconOnly shows just the icon. Switch to it only when the screen is phone-sized, ScreenSize.Small, and keep the button's accessible label.
A Refresh button lets people reload a screen's data without leaving it. The neat way to build one: move the screen's loading formula into the button's OnSelect, start it with Refresh, and make the screen's OnVisible select the button. Opening the screen and selecting Refresh then run the same formula.
Refresh gets a fresh copy of a data source, so the app shows changes other people made while it was running. It has no result, and it only works in formulas that run on an action, such as OnSelect and OnVisible. If your screen keeps data in variables, run its queries again after Refresh.
SharePoint gives every list item a number when it's created: its ID. To open one item on another screen, pass its ID with Navigate, and read the item there with LookUp(List, ID = ...). SharePoint can run that query itself, as long as you compare the ID with =.
A manager approved an employee's response, but the employee's screen kept saying Waiting for review, even after she opened it again. Microsoft documents why: a running canvas app doesn't pick up changes other people make. The fix is to call Refresh when a screen opens, and to give people a Refresh button for when they stay on a screen.
In Power Apps Studio, copying a control puts its code on the clipboard, and pasting creates a control from that code. If you copy anything else in between, such as a formula, the paste fails with There's something wrong with the pasted code. Check the code and try again. The fix is to copy the control again right before you paste it.
The '.' operator cannot be used on Error values means the name on the left of a dot has already failed, so Power Apps can't read a field from it. In my case, a copied control brought along a context variable that only exists on another screen. The fix is on the left of the dot.
Until now, only the person building the app has used it. This part publishes it, shares it with the team, and opens it as a team member who has nothing but a Microsoft 365 license. Then it builds the manager's side: a My team screen with each direct report, and a screen per person showing what's waiting for review and where their plan stands.
Power Fx has no Exists function, but you don't need one: LookUp returns the first record that matches, or blank when nothing does. Wrap it in !IsBlank(...) and you get true when a record exists. On SharePoint, it's delegable.
Live monitor records what a canvas app does while it runs: which button was selected, which data it fetched, how long that took, and warnings such as delegation. When a formula gives an unexpected result, it shows what really happened.
