PowerApp Using SharePoint List is not Showing New Columns/Fields

Question

When creating a PowerApp using a SharePoint list as the data source, any new columns/fields created in the SP list are not retroactively refreshed in the PowerApp.

The data (SP list items) refreshes, but the new columns/fields are not available.

In other words, if I...

1. Create a SP list named "foo" with 2 columns (first name, last name)
2. Create a PowerApp using the SP list "foo" as the data source
3. Update SP list "foo" to have 3 columns (first name, last name, e-mail)
4. When I reload the PowerApp, it will not show a field for "e-mail".

Am I doing it wrong?

Answer 1

When PowerApps generates an app from a SharePoint list or other data source, it generates the app based on the current state of the data source. If the data source changes, the app will not automatically edit itself to account for this.

Because of this, to update an app based on a changed data source, you will need to manually adjust it. Fortunately, this isn't difficult.

Below, I have an app I generated from a list called "PowerAppList", which had a Title column and a Column1 column. I then added Column2. As you can see, it still hasn't been adjusted.

First, we need to refresh the data source in the app. This allows the app to refetch the schema of the list, which is important since it changed.

After refreshing, we need to change the forms in the app. Here I have selected the Edit form on the third screen. Notice that we now have a hidden card for Column2, since we refreshed the data source.

When we click the eye icon, a data card will be added to the form for Column 2.

Note that you will need to do this for each form in your app. Here we add the card to the Detail Screen.