Set a Default Value for a Dropdown Menu in Power Apps/Dynamics 365 (Model-driven and Canvas Apps)

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

What else do you want to learn in Power Apps? Let me know below in the comments!

[@RD-Man]

Thank you for helping solve my issue with the default drop down. You are the only one I found that deals with this real world scenario of integrating with the dataverse.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I'm so glad it helped! Thanks for watching, and for such a nice comment! 🙏🤓🌟

[@kanchanc7693]

This was so quick and simple, thanks a ton!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I'm glad it helped! Thanks for watching! 😊

[@sw97058]

This was very useful and quick to the point.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Great to hear! 💪🤓 Thanks for watching!

[@stuartharrod4007]

Excellent and nicely explained. Thank you

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Glad it was helpful! 😊🔥Thanks for watching, and for the nice comment!

[@oPrussiano]

Thanks for the help, was almost losing my mind here!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Glad I could help! 😊🙏

[@NivPetrol]

so clear and to the point, I am loving it!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I'm so glad! Thanks for watching and for the kind words! 🤓🙏🌟

[@berggrog1]

Nicely explained, I found your video on another subject but glad I found you. Thanks for sharing!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Oh, yay! Welcome to the channel! 😊

[@Joe-kj8bw]

Hi Thank you for this information. I am having trouble getting that default value to save to my sharepoint list when I save/submit the Form. Is there a way to do that so the user does not need to actually make a selection?

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Joe! 👋 Gosh, I'm not sure if there's a way to save if there's no action from the user on it. I unfortunately won't be able to take a look for a few days, but maybe try posting on the Power Apps forum? community.powerplatform.com/forums/thread/?groupid=b5652dc6-2c99-4e33-8b6f-45be4a896a40&page=1. It's really active, and I get lots of good info there. Or try searching first to see if someone else has asked, then post if you're not finding anything. Hope that helps, and good luck! 🤓

[@longlivebytor]

I come from a web/windows app development background, so learning Power Apps has been an interesting journey. What I'm currently struggling with is determining how to set a selection in a drop-down with an expression (for example, in the onSelect event of a button). Is this possible? If so, I would love to see that covered.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Larry! Yes, the journey from web/windows development to Power Apps is an interesting one. 😊 Can you clarify what you mean by "expression"? You can definitely hook into the OnSelect property of the dropdown and take various actions/set values. There are a couple examples here that might get you started: arpitpowerguide.wordpress.com/2021/12/28/power-apps-set-reset-choice-and-lookup-columns-in-edit-form/

[@longlivebytor]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials - it is very interesting, indeed. By expression I meant any statement or line of code where you're assigning a value to a variable or property. Thanks for the help - I ended up figuring it out. It wasn't the solution I had expected, but it made sense.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Great! Glad you were able to figure it out.

[@gabrielsimkin5389]

Exactly what i needed, thank you.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yay! Glad it helped!

[@pikachickfarm]

Hi! Do you have a way to show the manager of current logged in User as default value of a lookup field to Users? Thank you!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Marvin! 😊 Maybe this will help? powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/get-selected-user-manager-name/td-p/680080

[@thsison23]

Very helpful!!! thanks Amber

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I'm so glad! Thanks, Teodoro! :)

[@fyrearm]

What if your DataSource is a collection? I'm still trying to figure out how to set a default or even set the value manually. They removed Default property as well from the dropdown control, in the modern control.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi @fyrearm!👋 Sorry for the slow response! Were you able to figure this out? I haven't tried it using a collection before...

[@IndiaZindabadh]

Hi , Currently I am working on canvas app i am using dropdown in it , and loading the second dropdown based on data selection of first dropdown using filter function, but the issue is data is loading in second dropdown but some data/items is missing based on first dropdown selection...any suggestions? Distinct(Filter(Awards,'Award type'=ddl_AwardType.Selected.Value),Cycle)...this is function details

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi badar! 😊 Maybe this will help? powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/Populate-a-Dropdown-Based-on-the-Value-of-Another-Dropdown-in/td-p/581717

[@KevinAyalared]

Thanks a lot im a begineer in power apps and this is very helpeful

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yay...I'm so glad! :) Thanks for the nice comment, Kevin!

[@dandrem.4074]

Thank you so much! I was struggling to have the choice columns default to one of the selectable items.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You're very welcome! Glad it helped! 😊

[@shancong3638]

Thank you so much! you helped me a lot!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yay! I'm so glad it helped. Thanks for watching! 😊😎🌟

[@GraemesAdventures]

Great, thanks. I really appreciated the bit about customising error messages. In one of my apps, users frequently miss entering dates because the date picker has a grey font 'tool tip' date entered. I've now got an error message for this.

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Excellent! So glad I could help! :)

[@jnvc9121]

Not a dropdown control, but a combobox. I have dropdown with hard coded items. I want the default selected value of the dropdown to change based on a value from a text box (result of a de concatenate formula) how do i do that?

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi @jnvc9121! 😊 Maybe this will help? powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/Autofill-Auto-select-a-dropdown-value-based-on-a-text-field/td-p/700935

[@MsKaz80]

Thanks!!!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

You bet! :)

[@MovingOutMyMoms]

You rock!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Awwww shucks! :) Thanks so much...glad it helped!

What if you do not have a default value in your choice options? Shall I add for DefaultSelectedItem a simple FX function With({x:Choices('Event Type Choices')},ForAll(Sequence(CountRows(x)+1),{Value:If(Value=1,"--Please select--",Last(FirstN(x,Value-1)).Value)})) or just use NoselectionText property of dropdown and add "--Please select'--" value? What option can be used on model-driven form apart from Business rule where you can add a recommendation to hover over the --- to select a choice or add a component with the Option set? Do you know wow can make the dropdown field on model driven app's Form onFocus by default, do I need to add JS component? Thank TTT :)

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Kristof! Great question...my example isn't doing error-handling very well. :) I tried a few different versions of your formula and unfortunately couldn't make it work (though might just be me). But I think you can avoid looping with the "With" and "ForAll" functions, and just rely on "Choices," and its searchtext. If it finds the text, it'll return the rows it found. If not, it'll return zero rows. So I updated my formula to check that it found 1 row, and then based on that, set the default value. (Though again, lots of different ways to do things in Power Apps, so this is just one.) If(CountRows(Choices(Events.'Event Type', "Please Select")) = 1, {Value : "Please Select was found--safe to use!"}, {Value : "It wasn't found--figure out what to use instead!"}) For the model-driven app hover question...yeah, a business rule would be easiest. I think when you say "recommendation," you're referring to the "Recommendation" that's an actual component in the business rule? That will give you a lightbulb icon next to the field name, and if someone clicks that, they'll see whatever verbiage you want. Or if you want to make it more obvious, you can use an error message, "If Event Type does not contain data"-->"Show error message" (with whatever verbiage you want). And to set focus in a model-driven app, I'm not aware of a way to do it other than through the Client API: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/developer/model-driven-apps/clientapi/reference/controls/setfocus Hope it helps! :)

[@kellyliu4225]

Hello Thank you for the very useful video! Actually I have problem with Model Driven for the dropdown. First, there is no dropdown option in the Insert Input for custom page for Model Driven, right? Second, when I have to copy a dropdown from a Choices linked dropdown over another area in the custom page(Model Driven), I want to set this copied dropdown Default to according to clicking of each item inside a gallery, the formula below is not working in Model Driven. But for Canvas real dropdown the formula works well. Do you know what's the issue is? dropdown Default: galleryItems.Selected.Client.'Account Name'

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Hi Kelly! Thanks for watching! 😊 I spent a little bit of time looking into this with a custom page in a Model-driven app. You're right...it seems that the dropdown isn't supported for some reason (doesn't show in the UI when you're editing the page, and also isn't listed as a supported control here: github.com/MicrosoftDocs/powerapps-docs/blob/main/powerapps-docs/maker/model-driven-apps/design-page-for-model-app.md). Not sure if this is something that will eventually be supported or not? The only way I can get it to appear is on a form that's hooked up to a datasource with a Choice column. For example, I have an Edit form for Contacts, and the Gender column is of type Choice. But even once it's showing up on the form, if I try to set the DefaultSelectedItems property on the dropdown, it doesn't let me (it defaults to "[Parent.Default]" and the formula bar is grayed out). (Confirmed that I CAN still set the default on a Canvas app page using the formula shown in this video.) I also tried using a Combo Box control (which IS available) instead of Dropdown. However, I'm having the same issues setting defaults. On your second question, I'm not totally sure I'm following how you're getting the dropdown to appear on the page? But I wonder if it still has the same limitations for Default like mentioned above? I've done some Googling, but am really not coming up with anything. I'd suggest posting the question in the Power Apps Forum: powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Power-Apps/bd-p/PowerAppsForum1. It's a pretty active community, and I've found some good answers there before. Sorry I don't have any solid answers, but hopefully this is somewhat helpful! 😊

[@kellyliu4225]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials Wow thanks so much putting so much effort into it! This makes me believe that probably custom page for Model Driven is still under construction and significantly change products of Microsoft. Hope they can add dropdown sometime soon. I copied DataCardValue of that dropdown which automatically created from the table/Choices, but as we tested, we could not set Default…

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Yeah, I think you're right...seems that custom pages are still a work in progress. Hopefully they'll support all the same functionality as the Canvas pages soon. Thanks for asking the question...I learned some things myself! 😊

[@kellyliu4225]

@@TinyTechnicalTutorials I got some help solved the problem by using a ComboBox with multi select turn to off and hook only one field by Edit Fields, Account Name in my case. Items set to the table name and DefaultSelectedItems set to the record instead of column ex: galProjects.Selected.Client Thanks again!

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

Oh, awesome!! Glad you were able to figure out a workaround. And thanks for posting it here...hopefully it'll help someone else! 🙏

[@raymox1018]

thx

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

For sure! Thanks for watching! 😊

[@remisalome8187]

that is a combobox not a dropdown box ...

[@ramseshernanadez2842]

Very usefull, thank you very much

[@TinyTechnicalTutorials]

I'm so glad!! Thanks for watching, and for such a nice comment! 🙏🤓🌟