Merging collections in a Canvas app using Patch

On a recent project, I was getting frustrated at having to change the same Patch code many times. Don’t repeat yourself (DRY) is tricky to implement in PowerApps. What follows is the solution I came up with to simplify it.

The app needed to create records of several different types, but with a set of common fields. At first I had a large switch statement, with a Patch for every record type, core fields included. This led to a Patch statement of around 1000 lines. Yes.

I found I could create one collection with the common core fields. I could then build a second collection with the differing fields using a Switch formula.

Once I had the two collections I could merge them together into a 3rd collection using Patch():

Patch(collectionMerged, collection1, collection2);

I then Patched the the first record of this collection to the Datasource:

Patch(DataSource, Defaults(DataSource),First(collectionMerged))

I couldn’t get it working with a record.

This made my formula a lot more readable. It also made it more maintainable going forward. Especially in instances where I have the same code on many buttons.

I’d like to figure out if there is a way of doing this with records. Or if the new named formulas feature would provide some benefits.

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