Power Apps Combo Box Control [How to Use]

Have you ever worked with Power Apps combo box control? If not, No worries!

In this Power Apps tutorial, I will explain all about Power Apps combo box control, its key properties, and how to add a Combo box control in Power Apps.

Moreover, we will see how to use combo box control with a simple scenario and many more like:

• How do you display the selected value from a Power Apps combo box control?
• What are the limitations of the Power Apps combo box?
• Difference between Power Apps Combo box and Dropdown control
• Power Apps Combo box vs List box

Power Apps Combo Box Control

Power Apps Combo box control helps users select from a provided list of choices. The choices in a combo box are usually displayed in a drop-down list format.

Using the combo box control, the user can type directly into the box to search for a specific option. Power Apps combo box control supports single or multiple selection capabilities.

If the user needs to search for an item containing any numbers, we can use the Text() function to convert numbers into text. For example, Text(6789).

We can utilize the combo box control as a people picker.

Note,

The combo box helps to display a single data value, a picture, and a person value for each item by modifying the layout settings in the data pane.

Power Apps Combo Box Control Properties

Here, I will explain all the properties of the Power Apps Combo box control:

Property Name	Description
Border Color	A user can specify the color for a border.
Border Style	This property specifies the type of border that the control should have [“Solid”, “Dashed”, “Dotted”, “None”].
ChevronHoverBackground	Users can specify the background color for a chevron.
DefaultSelectedItems	When the user opens the app, by default the item should be selected. For this, we can specify single or multiple items to the combo box DefaultSelectedItems property.
DisplayFields	This property helps to display the list of fields for a search result.
DisplayMode	This property allows user input to edit, display data [view], or disable.
InputTextPlaceholder	Display the instructional text to users when the items are not selected in a combo box control.
Items	To represent the values in a combo box, we can specify the data source along with the column name, else we can provide it manually.
OnChange	When the user changes a selection, it specifies what action to perform.
OnSelect	When the user clicks on a control, it specifies what action to perform.
SearchFields	Specify the field or column within the combo box control that you wish to search.
SelectMultiple	Using this property, we can provide the authority to the user, whether they can select single or multiple items.
TabIndex	This refers to the keyboard navigation sequence that is related to other controls.
Visible	Here, we can specify whether the combo box control can be visible.

How to add Power Apps Combo box control

Here, I will show you how to insert a combo box control in Power Apps:

• Sign in to your Power Apps with your valid Microsoft 365 credentials.
• Create a Blank canvas app -> On the Power Apps screen, insert a Combo box control [Click on +Insert -> Expand Input -> Select Combo box].

• By default, the combo box control name will be “ComboBox1“; based on your requirement, you can Rename it.

This is how we can insert a Power Apps combo box control.

How to use Combo box control in Power Apps

In this section, I will explain how to use combo box control in Power Apps.

Scenario 1 [Power Apps combo box add items manually]

Here, I will show you how to add items manually in the Power Apps combo box control.

• On the Power Apps screen, insert Combo box control -> Set its Items property to:

["Basic", "Standard", "Premium"]

• Save, Publish, and Preview the app. Now, the combo box control contains the items that we added manually.

This is how we can add items manually in the Power Apps combo box control.

Scenario 2 [Power Apps combo box items from SharePoint list]

Here, I will explain how to insert items to the Power Apps combo box control using a SharePoint list as a data source.

Example,

I have a SharePoint list [Employee Details], which has various columns like:

Column Name	Date Type
Issue ID	Title
Issue	Single line of text
Device	Choice [“Laptop”, “Smart Phone”, “Desktop”]
Timeline	Choice [“2 Days”, “3 Days”, “4 Days”]
Issue Assigned To	Lookup

• In Power Apps, there is a Combo box control, which is connected to the above SharePoint list choice column [Timeline].

To achieve this, follow the below steps:

• Create a Power Apps Blank canvas app -> Connect to the SharePoint Online list -> as in the screenshot below:

• On the Power Apps screen, insert a Combo box control -> Set its Items property to:

'IT Support Ticket'

Where,

1. IT Support Ticket = SharePoint list name

• On the Combo box properties pane, Click on Edit Fields -> Select the particular field in both “Primary text” and “Search fields” that you want to display in the combo box.

• Save, Publish, and Preview the app. Now the combo box control contains the values from the above SharePoint list column [Timeline].

This is how we can insert items to the Power Apps combo box control from a SharePoint list.

Display Selected Value From Power Apps Combo Box Control

Here, I will show you how to display the selected value from the Power Apps combo box control.

Example,

1. In Power Apps, there is a Combo box control and Text label control.
2. Whenever the user selects a value from the combo box control, that value will be displayed in the text label control.

To achieve it, follow the below steps:

• On the Power Apps screen, insert a Combo box control -> Set its Items property to:

'IT Support Ticket'.Issue

Where,

1. IT Support Ticket = SharePoint list name
2. Issue = SharePoint list column name

• Insert a Text label control -> Set its Text property to:

Concat(cmb_Timeline.SelectedItems,Issue,", ")

Where,

• cmb_Timeline = Combo box control name
• Issue = SharePoint list column name

• Save, Publish, and Preview the app. Whenever the user selects a value from the combo box control, that value will be displayed in the text label as shown below:

This is how we can get the selected value from the Power Apps combo box control.

Power Apps Combo Box Limitation

In this section, I will explain about Power Apps combo box limitations:

• Power Apps Combo box can only deal with 2000 records, but By default, the Data row limit is set to 500.

The main question related to this is: How much data I can show in the Power Apps combo box control?

Answer = The maximum number of items that the Combo box can contain depends upon the app limit.

Note,

Further, if you are getting a “Power Apps delegation warning” while working with combo box control. To overcome it, just check out the complete article: “Delegation Warning in Power Apps Combo box [How to Overcome]“

Power Apps Combo Box vs Dropdown

Here, in detail, I will show you the main differences between the Power Apps combo box and dropdown.

Power Apps Dropdown	Power Apps Combo box
The dropdown allows a single item to be selected.	The combo box allows multiple items to be selected.
The dropdown doesn’t have any searching capabilities.	It allows us to search through a list of items in the combo box control.
It can show a maximum of only 500 items; if it is more than 500, it shows a message as it has reached the maximum limit.	The combo box can show the items up to the app limit [Power Apps combo box can only deal with 2000 records].
When the user needs to select an empty selection, by default, AllowEmptySelection is false unless we set it to true.	By default, the user can unselect the selected value in a combo box.
When the user doesn’t select any value from the dropdown control, we can insert a text label control with a default message such as “Please select”.	By default, the user can unselect the selected value in a combo box

These are the main differences between the Power Apps combo box and dropdown control.

Power Apps Combo Box vs List Box

Here, I will explain the differences between the combo box and the list box in Power Apps:

Combo Box Control	List Box Control
It allows users to search through a list of items in the combo box control.	The list box allows users to make selections from the provided choices.
The Combo box can easily fit in a small space.	The list box cannot easily fit in a small space because the values will be listed.
This is suitable when there is a list of choices.	A list box is suitable when we want to restrict the input values to be listed.
We can set the multiple selected values as default.	We can set the multiple selected value as default, but later the default value will be the first selected value.

These all are the main differences between the Power Apps combo box control and dropdown control.

Conclusion

In this Power Apps tutorial, I have explained all about “Power Apps combo box control“.

By this tutorial, you can have an in-depth understanding of the Power Apps combo box control and its key properties.

Additionally, I have shown you how to add Power Apps combo box control and also how to use combo box control in Power Apps.

Moreover, you can have detailed information about displaying the selected value from a Power Apps combo box control and the combo box limitations in Power Apps.

Furthermore, this tutorial highlights the differences between:

• Power Apps Combo box vs Dropdown
• Combo box vs List box in Power Apps

Also, you may like some more Power Apps tutorials:

• How to Set Combo Box Default Value in Power Apps?
• How To Save Power Apps Combobox Multiple Values To SharePoint List?
• How to Populate Distinct Values in Power Apps Combo Box?
• Power Apps Combo Box Sort
• Power Apps check if a Combo box is empty
• Power Apps Combo Box Filter Gallery
• How To Remove Power Apps Combo Box Selected Item?
• How to Display Combo Box Items from SharePoint list in Power Apps?