PL-100 Microsoft Power Platform App Maker – Create model-driven apps – views

1. 18, 28. Create and configure Dataverse table views

In this video we’re going to have a look at how we can create and configure Dataverse views. And we’ve already used views even though we didn’t know we did. If we go to the PowerApps portal and go to Tables and select a particular table, in this case the expense table and go to Data, that is a view. The view is the active expenses view.

There are also a few other views as well and we can see what views we’ve got by clicking on the views. Now there are three different types of views. There are personal views, system views and public views. Now we’re going to look at personal views in the next video system Views. These can be edited, they cannot be deleted or deactivated. The power apps uses them and there are four types of these system views.

There is the associated view. So this is for related tables. For a particular row there is the advanced Find view. This displays results when using the advanced find which we’re going to have a look at in the next video. There’s the Lookup view so that selects a row for a Lookup table. And there is the quick find view. So that’s the default view for the Quick Find.

So these four types are not shown in the site map navigation. So when we go to the app designer and to have a look at views, you don’t need to worry about the fact that they are shown here, they will be used, but they’re not something that you can actually select. You can just select things which aren’t the system views.

So what other views are there? There are public views so you can see active and inactive name of table. Those are the default views that will probably be created when you create any new table. Now you can create public views but equally unlike the system views which you cannot delete and you can also delete any public views that you create. So that’s important. You can’t delete the active or the inactive. Those aren’t ones you have created. You can however deactivate you can set as a default view. So let’s create a new view. So having gone to add view you can add the name. So this is my view and a description and click Create. So this is fairly simple, you only have one item on the left hand side.

These are table columns. However, these are not necessarily all of the Table columns. So you can select all default and custom. But default is probably good enough. You can also hide any columns which you have already used. Now if I want to add a column very easy, all I need to do is click on it or I can go over here to the View column and click on Solving there. Now you can change the column width but the end user can do this as well.

So this is a good default. But bear in mind that with model driven apps you are not in final control. Now, if you’ve got any related tables, you’ve also got this related button. So maybe I wanted to go into the account and get the city that can be added as well. So even though I’m in the expense table, I can also see the city. Now, there are also various properties. So if I edit the property, you can see the column width. So I’ll take that back to 171. But you notice what I can’t do, I can’t rename it for instance.

So the properties are very thin on the ground. You can also move columns left and right or you could just drag them. You can just drag and drop. Now you might not want to show absolutely every single item. So we do have some filters and sort by. So if I click on edit filters, I can say I want to only show those items which are so maybe I don’t want to show very small items. Well, I can add a row and say I want the exchange value to be greater than $99. For instance. Maybe I want to do something else. Maybe I want to show all items which are in Santa Cruz, while I can add a related table. So in the account table I want to show where the city is equal to Santa Cruz. Now you can see at the top we’ve got the word and so this is going to show expenses which are greater than 99 and where we are in Santa Cruz. So if I click okay, that will probably remove most of them.

Okay, suppose I didn’t want that. So let’s just click on the X next to it and say actually I wanted it to be an or we can add a group and here we can change the and or the or. So I want to say where the expense value is greater than 99. And here you can see the problem. I can’t add related tables to the group. So given that it is an and you can only include filters where both are going to be true. So where this happened and where something else happened.

So why this account city is equal to center Cruise, for instance. Now, just a word of these dot adults, you can say make groups if you want to. So in other words, if you selected multiple items, you could say I want to make doors to be a group. But that won’t work. While you’ve got related tables, you can also delete using the drop down and we can also collapse like this. So what I’m going to do is I’m just going to say all I want is why it is greater than $10. So I’m just going to get rid of all of this. So click okay. In fact, because it’s now saying advanced filters are present, I’m just going to delete everything and just say start again where the value is greater than $99 and leave it at that. Now you can see a little filter symbol has appeared over the expense value.

So that’s showing that it is being filtered, that rows are potentially being removed based on that column. Now, what if I want to sort well, I can sort just by clicking on the drop down arrow and say smaller to larger, larger to smaller. However, if I want some more complicated things then you might want to use over here to say, okay, I want to sort by the expense value and then the ID. Oh no, I want to change it by the ID, then the expense value. So now we know which way round it is going. So I’m going to now save this and publish this. So it takes a few seconds and now I’ll go back.

So if I now go to the data over here, I’ve got active expenses, inactive expenses and my view as well as some of the system views. So there is my view and you can see these are hyperlinked. So if I click on any of them, then I will get to a dashboard about it. So in this video we’ve had a look at how to create and configure views. Now, views are weed only items, but what if you wanted to be able to edit your particular data in line? So while you actually see the view, we’ll have a look at how we can create an editable grid for a particular table in the next video.

2. 28. Dataverse views: Enabling editable grids

Now I should also point out that there is and you can see I can delete this view if I wanted a classic view as well. And you can see switch to classic. I think the only main reason for doing this is if you preferred at this interface there aren’t really any more significant things you can do here. Now, there is one more thing that does rely on on the classic interface but it’s not actually here, it’s in the solution Explorer. And what you can do there is configure something called editable grids. In other words we’ve got a read only grid as our default control. But what if you could edit the data actually in the view itself? Well for this we need to go back. So I will go to make powerapps. com and we need to go to the solution Explorer.

So we go to the advanced settings in the gear, you go to settings and customizations customize the system. So this is the old solution Explorer and then we go into entities the name of the table. So in this case that is expense and just click we then have a controls tab and there we can add the editable grid and so there we can set it up for in this case the web and the tablet. Then we can click save and then Publish. When this allows me publishes customizations. So this should now allow main grids to be editable. So let’s close this and so what I’m going to do now is close everything just to go back to the power apps portal. I’m going to go to my app, I’m going to play it go to say expenses go to my view and now I’ve got the ability to inline edit.

So I can just click on something and edit it. Whereas if I go to say the account table and create a new view so this is my view account. So I haven’t enabled editable grids and I’m just going to add the city there we go for that edit too many times maybe the account number. So let’s just leave that there. Click save, click Publish, go back to my app, edit it, make sure that we have got this new whereas if I go to any table where I haven’t put in editable controls by clicking on it I’d get nothing doubleclicking on it.

I go to this dashboard so that shows the difference between editable and not and not everything is editable. So I can’t edit this created on for instance because that’s a system column. Whereas if I go to my view I can edit other columns.

So in this video we’ve had a look at how to create new views. So the easiest way is to go to a particular table and go to view and you can test the view without going to the model driven app by just going to the data section and having a look at your view not as you can’t edit it from here. It has to be in a model driven app. In the next video, we’ll have a look around our view in the model driven app and we’ll have a look at the advanced find as well.

3. 28. Dataverse views: Advanced Find

Now in this video what we’re going to do is have a look around some of the things we can do in the view and I’m really going to concentrate on creating views as we did in the previous video. Now, I said in the previous video that there are three types of views. There are system views, public views and personal views. So personal views are ones that individuals create so they’re only visible to that individual or whoever they shared their personal views with. So if I go up here and go to create View we get a classic interface here. So this is also approachable a different way. If we go to the very top we have the advanced find and these two windows are both the advanced find view.

So different ways of getting to exactly the same thing. So from here we can have a look at a particular query and then save a view from it. So at the moment we are using the My view where the filter that we put in is the expense value is greater than $99. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to create a new view and I’m going to say that the expense value has to be greater than or equal to $10. And the expense value has to be less than or equal to $99. Now, in addition to creating this photo, we can also edit the columns. So these are the columns which will be displayed.

So as you can see I really need to add some new columns and what I’m going to add is the expense of value and the description. So let’s click okay, I can narrow this down, can’t do it by just dragging, unfortunately, no matter how hard I try. Instead I’m going to have to change the properties and say well, I want a 50 pixel width. So this is my new view so I can add whatever I want. So click OK. So let’s see what the results are going to be.

So I’m going to click on this exclamation mark which is going to show me the results of this particular view. And you can see we’ve got two items. Now notice this shows a huge amount of additional information but most of these activities you can also do in the new interface. So won’t be concerning too much about this. So let’s save this view. So I’m going to go to View Save. So I’m going to call this my personal view.

So click save. So now we’ve done that, we can select this personal view just by going to the drop down and going My Views. So there is My View and I can click on any of these and get to the form whenever I want. So you can see what your views are by going to the advanced Find. And then over here we’ve got the saved views and here you can see My Personal View and then I can click on it and I can edit it. So if I change this now so that it is less than $89 and save close, go back in, you can see that the personal view is now $89 even though I can go away from it and come back.

So personal views, these are views for user level access. So anybody who can access the saved view table can also create personal views. They are owned by that individual and are only visible for that individual and whoever they share it with. And there are lots of different ways of getting there. You could go to create View, you could go to advanced Find and you can adjust the photos. So let’s say I wanted to adjust this photo to $79. There it is. I can click on the drop down arrow next to the correct view and I can save the photo as a new view or to the current view. In avoids overriding what’s already in my personal view with a star.

So what I’m going to do is I’m going to save this to a new view and this is going to be called my personal view 79. And now my Personal View which is 99 or $89 and My Personal View 79 are both personal views that I can select. And you’ve heard me say a few times that you can share a view. If you want to know how to do that, you go to the advanced finds, you go to save view, you click on the check box next to your view and there you will be able to share.

So these are personal views. So I can add a user to this view, for instance. So let’s add power platform developer so this person I’m going to have the checkbox, I’m going to select that I’m going to add and this is when you can share the view and you can say I want it to be read, write, delete, append, assign or share. So you can select whether somebody has read views but not is able to write, for instance. So these are personal views.