Power Apps – How to see what is inside a collection

The following methods will enable you to see the contents of an existing collection in Power Apps studio.

From Power Apps studio, do the following:

1. Click the ‘Variables’ tab on the left-side pane.
2. Expand the ‘Collections’ group.
3. Find the collection that you want to investigate and click the three dots (ellipsis).
4. Click on ‘View Table’.

Select any control that has the intended collection name in the formula bar, then do the following:

1. Select the whole name of the collection from the formula bar. You can also double-click on part of the word to auto-select it.
2. Click on the arrow beside the collection name below the formula bar to expand the display. You should now see the contents of the collection when expanded.

Step 1:

You can use a data table control or gallery control to see the contents of a collection. For this example, we will insert a data table control to the canvas.

Step 2:

From the properties pane of the data table, do the following:

1. Click on the ‘Data source’ dropdown.
2. Select the intended collection

Step 3:

From the same properties pane of the data table, do the following:

1. Click on ‘Edit fields’.
2. Click on ‘Add field’.
3. Check all checkboxes of the columns that you want to display.
4. Click ‘Add’.

Conclusion:

You should see the contents of the collection in the data table control.