Power Apps Dropdown Control – How to Use

In this Power Apps tutorial, I will explain how to use the Power Apps dropdown control with various properties of Power Apps dropdown control.

I will show you how to add a dropdown control to a Power Apps canvas app, how to add items manually to a dropdown control in Power Apps, and, finally, how to populate a dropdown list from a SharePoint list in Power Apps.

In the end, we will see how to save the selected value from the Power Apps dropdown to a SharePoint list.

Power Apps Dropdown Control

Power Apps dropdown control helps users select a single item from various choices. The dropdown can show a maximum of only 500 items; if it is more than 500, it shows a message that it has reached the maximum limit.

By default, “AllowEmptySelection” is false unless the user sets it to true.

Power Apps Dropdown Control Properties

In this section, I will explain all the properties of the Power Apps dropdown control:

Property Name	Description
AccessibleLabel	This property is assigned to a screen reader label.
AllowEmptySelection	This property explains the condition in which no item is selected, the control displays an empty selection. Users may also clear their selections by choosing the blank item.
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.
Default	When the user opens the app, by default the item should be selected. For this, we can specify a single item to the dropdown Default property.
Fill	This property displays the background color of the control.
Items	To represent the values in a dropdown, 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.
Reset	We can reset the dropdown selected value to its default value or blank.
TabIndex	This refers to the keyboard navigation sequence that is related to other controls.
Visible	Here, we can specify whether the dropdown control can be visible or not.

How to add Power Apps Dropdown control

Here, let me show you how to insert a dropdown control on the Power Apps screen. If you are new to Power Apps, check out a tutorial on Create a Canvas App from a SharePoint List.

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

The dropdown control will appear like the screenshot below.

• By default, the dropdown control name will be “Dropdown1“; it is always better to provide a meaningful name.

This is how to insert a Power Apps dropdown control. Then, let us see how to add items to the above dropdown list.

Add items to the Power Apps dropdown control

Power Apps allows us to manually add items to a dropdown control and from other sources like SharePoint, Excel, Collections, etc.

So, let us check how to bind values to a Power Apps dropdown manually and from a SharePoint list.

1. Power Apps dropdown add items manually

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

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

["Outlook","Laptop","Network","Other"]

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

This is how to add items manually in the Power Apps dropdown control.

Populate Power Apps dropdown items from a SharePoint list

Here, I will explain how to bind the dropdown values using a SharePoint list as a data source in Power Apps.

For this, I have a SharePoint list [Deaprtment], with a column below:

Column Name	Data Type
Department	Title

We will bind the above list Title column values to a Power Apps dropdown control like the screenshot below.

To work around this example, create a blank canvas app by using the SharePoint list and follow the below steps:

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

Distinct('Customer Details',Title)

Where,

1. Customer Details = SharePoint list name
2. Title = SharePoint list title column

• Save, Publish, and Preview the app. Now, you can see the dropdown control contains the values from the above SharePoint list title column.

This is how to bind items to a Power Apps dropdown control from a SharePoint list.

Power Apps save dropdown selected value to a SharePoint list

In this section, I will explain how to bind the dropdown values manually and save the selected item to a SharePoint list.

For this, I have a SharePoint list [Employee Details], with columns below:

Column Name	Department
Employee Name	Title
Employee Department	Single line of text

On my Power Apps screen, an Edit form is connected to an above SharePoint list with the two text-input controls. However, I must replace the text input [Department] control with a dropdown control.

When the user selects a value from the dropdown control [Department].

The selected value will be saved to a SharePoint list as shown below:

Now, create a blank canvas app by using the SharePoint list and follow the below steps:

• On the Power Apps screen, insert an Edit form -> add a new data source for the above SharePoint list and then Set the Edit form’s Data source property.

Where,

• Employee Details = SharePoint list name

• By default, the text input control will be added to a department. Remove the Text-input control [Department] -> Select the Department DataCard and insert a Dropdown control as shown below:

• Set the dropdown control, Items property to:

["IT","HR","Finance","Marketing"]

• Now, we want to save the selected value from a dropdown to SharePoint list single line of text column. Insert a Button control -> Set its OnSelect property to:

Patch(
    'Employee Details',
    Defaults('Employee Details'),
    {
        Title: DataCardValue1.Text,
        Department: drp_Department.Selected.Value
    }
)

Where,

• Employee Details = SharePoint list name
• Title = SharePoint list title column
• DataCardValue1 = Power Apps text-input control name
• Department = SharePoint list column name
• drp_Department = Power Apps dropdown control name

• Once your app is ready, just Save, Publish, and Preview the app when the user selects a value from the dropdown control and clicks on a button control.

• The selected item of a dropdown control will be saved in a SharePoint list single line of text column as shown below:

This is how to save the Power Apps dropdown value to a SharePoint list.

Conclusion

Dropdown control is a very widely used control in Power Apps. In this tutorial, I have explained in detail how to use a Power Apps dropdown control. Especially, I covered:

• What is dropdown control in Power Apps and its properties?
• Add items to a Power Apps dropdown control manually
• How to add items to a dropdown control from a SharePoint list in Power Apps
• Save Power Apps dropdown selected value to a SharePoint list

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