Populate Dropdown with SharePoint list field values

[katiecolling]

Hello, I need to build an app that allows the user to select an item from a drop down list. The item must be one of the possible values in a SharePoint list field.  How do I populate the drop down tool with the values from 1 field from a list in SharePoint?

[T_Willins · Accepted solution]

Hi @katiecolling,

From what you are describing you are using the SharePoint List Input, but this will work with any list that needs to be dynamically populated.  Using the chained-app functionality allows for an Alteryx database to be dynamically populated from the first app, which is then used by the second app as the values for the drop down list.  Attached is a sample workflow.  By chaining the apps together (picture below), the second app is automatically kicked off after the first is complete.

If this is what you are looking for, please mark this as an accepted solution so the community knows your question has been answered!

[meeravijayan2011]

Hi @katiecolling 

Hope this blog will help you to solve the problem.

https://www.thedataschool.co.uk/peter-gamble-beresford/dynamic-list-values-drop-tools-alteryx/

[katiecolling]

Thank you, @T_Willins  and @meeravijayan2011 , for your help on this!  It is really inspiring to know that there are other Alteryx developers in the community who have my back.  Thanks again!

@T_Willins , this approach worked great and ultimately is the solution I have gone with.  The thing that I had not considered was turning that initial workflow into an analytic app even though there are no interface tools on the canvas.  I did end up adding a label so that my users have a brief message telling them to press Continue since the app interface is completely blank.  So my end result is Analytic App #1 which pulls data from SharePoint and saves to an Alteryx DB, and Analytic App #2 which reads in the Alteryx DB and pushes those values to the Drop Down via the 'External Source' configuration.

@meeravijayan2011 , I thought this approach was such a great way to think outside the box!  I built an app that has a SharePoint connector to grab the field list values, the transpose/summarize/crosstab logic from your referenced article, and a Drop Down interface tool.  The issue I ran into is that it appears the SharePoint connector does not run upon open of the analytic app.  Instead, it has cached values stored from the previous run.  I need my app to have refreshed field list values upon open.  I have gone with the above approach so that I may move on with my project, but I wouldn't mind hearing any thoughts you may have on the bug I encountered for knowledge's sake.  🙂

Thanks again to you both!

Katie