Power Apps Combo Box DefaultSelectedItems 

Saved the day for me today! Was beating my head against the way trying to figure out how to show previously selected values from a hard-coded dropdown list.

After all this time, these still do my head in, plus I had to clear out a table again and again and have the items column renamed to value from a more logical name...but it finally worked. Thank you!

Although Ive watched these videos before, rewatching them and realizing its so much easier to follow when Ive gained more experience is satisfying. Loved when you renamed columns from result to value, its like telling powerapps “look at me, Im the captain now”

Great Explanation Shane, appreciate sharing your knowledge, I caught up into a problem with Combo box and almost spent a day trying to resolve, but had no luck, and I started looking for help over internet and came across your video which helped in solving my problem in less than 30mins. thank you very much

Saved my life on that comma-delimited source... Appreciate your videos man! Life saver!

Looking under the hood like this is always expands my understanding. Thank you.

Life saving video! 40 minutes from a meeting with clients and couldn't get my repeating tables with combo boxes to keep their values!!! THANK YOU!

After hours spent trying to figure out why the default selected item was displaying blank this finally cleared it up for me! (The mismatch of Result and Value column names) You're my hero!!

Shane! I love you!!!!!!! I have been baching my head against a wall for days on this problem and you come up trumps again. Thank you !

THANK YOU. You helped me solve my immediate problem, and you helped me to better understand some of the fundamentals MUCH better than I did 15 minutes ago!!!!

I thank you from the bottom of my heart good sir. Your video gave me my confidence back, after spending 2h30 banging my head against a wall, trying to manage a combobox through its default property.

This is awesome! I fall into the category that needed to watch well beyond the 5-minute mark. Great video, this answers EXACTLY what I was needing to know.

Hi Shane ! Thanks a lot for this tip I get more and more skilled with powerapps but I have to admit that you are my true master, I learnt powerapps and lanched a compagny thanks to your vidéos, out of this everything changed in my life as a total freelance now, when I will be richer I swear I'll propose you and family a plane ticket for holidays in Marseille and pay you a the best bouillabaisse on the vieux port ... I assume in one year or two ... thx

I have referred back to this video so many times. Thank you for continuing to make useful content!

Hours of looking on Microsoft's documentation and you salved my problem in 5 minutes. Well done!

When I have an issue I almost always end up at your videos! I just need to start coming here first :)

Amazing. Here are some that I had a hard time discovering and some that I couldn't. Learning from this video made my app even better.

Ohhh my godd.. Thanks alot I was searching for setting the default value of a combo box from a text box since 3hrs. You just explained it in an excellent way. Thanks alot. Keep doing more videos like this😍

Excellent video. Concise, yet thorough, as usual.

Thank you for going the extra mile! Those are the videos that help! Anyone can be basic!

seriously you are a life saver! this turorial gave the idea how I should go with this defaultSelectedItems. thanks!

Thank you for another great video Shane.

Shane - I am truly a fan... I was in the same boat as another commenter - nothing seemed to work. But then I re-watched and applied the {Value: "ItemName"} method you used in the hard coded section for my issue - and it worked like a charm. Whoo Hoo, THANKS!

Yes! That tutorial gave me the right inputs to get my combobox working (had this in the items "Choices([@'Project Reporting'].Customer)" and could not get it to select (and remember) the item from the gallery that was selected. Now it's done through this in the defaultselecteditems box: "LookUp(Choices([@'Project Reporting'].Customer), Value = glr_Reports.Selected.Title)"

Shane thanks for all your videos, you keep me inspired on learning new stuff, you're my idol :) !

Great video. Exactly what I was looking for. Keep up the awesome work.

Shane, you are very good, you saved me again.

Thank you Shane! I've created a AppSettings SharePoint list where I am storing app settings (defaults for filters, showing or hiding table columns, etc). Being able to grab a comma delimited string and set the DefaultSelectedItems from the SharePoint column is key to the success of this feature request in my solution...thank you!!

Thank you for this video. you are awesome Shane!

Wow what a great tricks. You alway teach me new thing. Thank you so much Shane

You did so much heavy lifting buddy kudos to you. Awesome job, Thanks a lot !!!!

Fun to watch learning at the same time. Thanks a lot!

THANK YOU! Excellent, easy to understand, to the point!

Still useful today after being posted 14 months ago. Matching the items column header within the defaultselecteditems and renaming the column to match it fixed my issue. Thanks

Thanks Shane, you are the best!!!!!!

thanks for the tip about the split function and the renaming the column from result to Value

Thanks a ton for this video! Helped a lot!

Pure spun gold, Shane

You are a true life saver. Thanks mate 👍👍👍👍👍👍 More thumbs up 👍👍👍👍👍 Thx

Great video as always. Just a quick insight I had: When selecting defaults on a combobox with a database table source, you can not use a function as a filter criteria as the query delegation will not work (e.g. LookUp(DBTable, Col1 = First(PowerBIIntegration.Data).col1). To solve this you first need to set a variable that can be used for filtering (e.g. Set(_varDBTable, First(PowerBIIntegration.Data).Col1 )); and default item= LookUp(DBTable, Col1 =_varDBTable)

It's a shame I can only subscribe and like once. Excellent content. These are great times, with all the development that Microsoft is putting behind PowerApps.

Thanks! Makes sense now on the combo defaults.

Perfect. Just when I needed it as well.

F..... awesom with the solution with renaming columns. Have saved me hours of work if I had just taken my time to watch the whole video. THX again Shane 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! The last method has made my day. Was worth watching the whole thing. Great Content Shane, Really appreciate you taking the time to explain these quirks in a simple way. My case was that the user can select a button to set the default form data. Button onSelect: UpdateContext({tempStr:TrimEnds(Concat(LookUp('Cert-FormDataTemplates',TemplateName = localTemplate,Stages).Value, Value&" "))}) my combo box has this code; items: ShowColumns( Filter('Cert-ChoicesDataList',Not(IsBlank(Stages))),"Stages") DefaultSelectedItems: Filter(ShowColumns( Filter('Cert-ChoicesDataList',Not(IsBlank(Stages))),"Stages"),Stages in tempStr) I tried so many forums and got nowhere until I watched this. You are brilliant! Thanks mate

Awesome video!

Again, thank you, Shane! You are a rockstar. That bloody combobox "Default" field is confusing, why did they keep it there if it doesn't have any use!

You read my mind with this issue Shane! Multi Select filter to Multi Select!

Thank you for your contribution. I was struggling with the combo box and was looking for some help

Thanks, my problem was whith record value and I could not understand the problem, you video was was amazing for me.

Really awesome... thanks for this video... it was very useful for me... :)

This is very usedfull information, thank for sharing.

Thank you so much Shane

Thanks Shane, always appreciate your videos. I'm using the steps provided in your repeating table videos and have added a combo box to the gallery. The combo box selections do save in the collection. When I create a new record in the gallery, the context in the saved text fields remain on the display but the combo box selected item disappears. What am I missing?

Shane, thank you very much, I mean really MUCH ;-) I spent so much time on this apparently easy thing. …

You solved my issue..thank u so much

Thank you Shane!

Thank you. Very usefull video

Hi Shane, I have had a lot of trouble setting the default selected items of a combo box when looking at a choices column. This seems to be a fundamental thing in Dataverse / Power Apps, using a combo box for a choices column but wow is it hard to find a way to set the default selected item. You mention the solution during the video, I use something like this: {Value: varRecord.'Choices Column'}. I use this in several places in almost all of the apps I build. Thanks for dropping that in there. I feel like this should be a bigger deal... This is the only place I have found this technique mentioned.

This is awesome. I'm using the steps provided in your repeating table videos and everything worked until I needed to make a change to one of the fields in the gallery to be a combo box. Being that once you save the value and go to the next line it doesn't retain what you entered in the first line. I added a ForAll to the DefaultSelectedItems. Now the portion that says when the Save Button is available seems to never be enabled despite saving each line. By setting a value in the DefaultSelectedItems does that make it seem that there is a already a value in the field being that you haven't selected anything yet?

Thank you for this video

O meeen this really valuable video

Hi Shane, thanks for another great video. How do you use a combobox with another data source in a form? Both databases I have are from a sql database but different tables, for example I need a searchable combobox to look at a suppliers sql table and save the chosen value back to my repairs sql table when submitted through my form..? :)

Once again, great content Shane, thank you very much! In one of my apps my registering several items according the distinct value of a table. For instance, it starts asking for a item, and then the quantity box shows up to insert a value. When I put the quantity the 2nd box item shows up, but the box shows the item I choose in the 1st. Do you know a simple way of removing the value from the 1st box in the 2nd box? Best regards.

AT 8:14 I saw the Light! Thanks Shane!

Thank you sir!

Hi Shane! Thanks for the combobox tutorial. I have a question though. I'm trying to get the default values inside the combo box within the 'defaultselecteditems' property. While it does show the values inside the combobox, the values cannot be retrieved or displayed and the combobox is considered as empty unless the values are re-selected. Is there a workaround for this? thanks!

Hi Shane, I'm loving your videos and they help a lot. Could you please help me understand how to pass a global variable into a combobox in a new form. So if I click from a Gallery onto a new page to add a record (1 to many for recording notes on a task), how do I pass the primary key into the notes form with foreign key. Thank you

Saved my life :)

YEEEESSSS!!!!!! Thank you thank you!!!!!!!

Another great video Shane. One question, have you done a video on combobox and how to display the current value from a selected gallery versus being able to select a item from the combobox on a new form and then how to write the new selection to the sql table that the form uses?

great video Shane, quick question, how would i go about default a value from a listgroupmembers connection for the selected item from the gallery?

nice one Shane

Brilliant!

Awesome video Shane I learned a couple of really cool stuff from this video! I have a question, how can I use the Combo Box and New Form thus when I type the name in the Combo Box, it shows me the record in Edit Mode Form? Thanks for your help!

Looking Fresh Shane.. ;)

Thank you again for saving me from losing more hair.

Thanks Shane

Always rely on you Shane! Stupid past me stored a column as a text value, with the control in the app a combobox, then the customer says we want multiple values in that column. Crap i cant change it to a lookup now i will loose all my data! Split to the rescue with rename columns haha Thanks!

Thanks again for the good informative video Shan, IF you don't mind,can you tell me how to set defaultselected item from CDS to combobox

Truely, Thank you

Great video - thanks🤩 will it work the same way if your source is peoplepicker connection? Let’s say I have gallery of projects. Within the form accessed from the gallery, I select the project team from O365 connection. Going back and forth between projects, will I be able to set the default selected team?

Great video as always. I ahve an issue though. When I set my DefaultSelectedItems to {Value: ThisItem.}, even though the item shows as a default, PowerApps thinks the ComboBox is BLANK until I go in and re-select the item? I need to some comparison logic to check if the default matches another cell, but it won't work until I go in and re-select the item again in the ComboBox??? Any ideas please!?

Thank you, I wish the powerapps docs had more example of how to use the various controls

Great Video Shane. I would love to see Combox used in a gallery. I have still not got this to work where you can have items in a collection the use a combobox within the gallery to 1) select values and then 2) Default the values when coming back to edit. Comboboxes in a gallery using the OnChange to patch a collection end up going into an infinite loop as the onChange and DefaultSelectedItems conflict.

Hi Shane, thanks for this. All your examples here works when the app is online, I was even using a collection and works just fine. But not if the app is offline. Any ideas or tips about this? Thanks

It took me a couple of days to realize about this, combo boxes are amazing but sometimes are strange

Another nice video from you, Shane! Thanks (y) . Quick query - I have combo box as one of the field in my form. I selected - more than one value in combo box , (say 2 out of 5)and submitted the form. When I open the form in EDIT mode, how can I see those 2 values as preselected in combo box along with other 3 values?

Hi Shane, How can build a collection from a Combo Box which dynamically add and deletes values as i add or delete records in the combo box ?

Hey Shane great video. I do have a question for you or anyone in the comments. I am building a app that connects to SharePoint data source and i have a combo box that shows the list but I have multiple items the same name I have used distinct to filter the other out but when i do the "Allow Searching" flips to false and when i flips it back it it changes again. Is there a way to keep the search function?

Thanks!

Thank you for the video!! Is it also possible to store multiple items selected from a combobox into a global variable (array) to pass it to the next screen?

Thanks for the good info! What about add "ALL" be the first item in the combobox list?

You are a life save, spend hours on this before watching the video.....done now ;-)

How to auto populate combobox values based on another combobox selected value. Please help me. I have two lookup fields.for example, If we select A in lookup1 then lookup2 should auto populate whith apple which is one of the option in lookup 2 .

Hi Shane, Recently I noticed that every time I create a new canvas app the forms will use Cambo boxes while in the past they used dropdowns. is this part of a new update/ layout power apps is pushing? if Yes how can we revert back to the old design? Thank you in advance for your help.

Hey Shane... thanks for all the great videos. I tried something and didn't manage to solve it... so I changed my approach... but I'm curious to see you show how it can be done. I had one gallery and one form to show that record... and then I had another smaller form for users to fill out "requests" on the selected gallery Record... The second form had one prepopulated field for the "Record ID" from the selected gallery record, so I could keep track on which record the request was attached to. However in my attempts to be "clever" I used two sharepoint lists... where that ID-column in the second list was linked to the ID-column of the first list. Now, no matter how I tried I couldn't get that column populated with the selected records ID when I submitted the second form. So finally I just turned it into a simple number column to get it to work. But I would love to know how it was supposed to be done... because I think I was close...

Thanks Shane. One query please. In my Items property for ComboBox I enter ["1", "2"] but when I actually open the app and click the ComboBox it shows values "35" and "37" instead of "1" and "2". Can you please help. Also I dont see the "Advanced Options" tab for my ComboBox.

I am bookmarking this one. Thanks! One thing I wish you could cover in the future is how to populate a Person combobox with filtered people from another List. Like how do you show available Counselors in that combobox so that the user must select one of those. The problem is that a FILTER() in items will make that combobox loose its Person schema and you no longer can display Email, Picture, etc. out the combobox selection. Plus saving the selection and coming back to the form how do you do the DefaulSelectedItems to show what was previously selected and to display the Picture in a separate image control?

There is any way to select copy the text from different text boxes into one final text box.. I already did it but if .. let say the first text box in empty my final text box copy the space from text box 1.. there is any way to make the final text box to ignore if text box1 is empty??