Create a New Column in Engage

Jan 17, 2024

A column represents the different fields, or data points, for your tables. Using Power Apps, you can create new columns to capture important pieces of information on your tables. In order to create a new column and have it visible in your environment, you must first bring in the necessary components into a solution for your changes, create the column, and arrange it onto the appropriate form.

Bring in the Components for the Solution

Before you can create a new column, you first need to create a solution and bring in the appropriate components for the changes you are making.

Select the Solutions tab. Then select the Solution for these changes.
From the menu ribbon, select Add Existing > Table.
Select the Table for the new Column.
Click Next.
Click Select Components from the Selected Tables list.
Select the Forms tab.
Then select the form for the new Column.
Click Add.
Once you've added all of your Tables and Components, click Add.

Create the New Column

Once your components have been added to the solution, you can create a new column for any table you have brought into the solution.

Select the Table for the new Column from your Solution.
Select the Columns tab.
Select +Add Columns.
Fill out the required information to create your column.
- Display Name: This will indicate how the column is labeled on the form.
- Name: This field will be generated based on the display name entered.
- Data Type: The data type of a column controls how values are stored and formatted on a form.
- Required: Indicate whether or not data is required in the column to save the record.
Click Done.
Click Save Table.

Arrange New Column on Form

Once your column has been created for a table, you need to arrange it on the appropriate form that was added to the solution.

Select the Forms tab.
Select the form for the new column. This will take you to the Form Designer. The Form Designer provides a real-time preview while you make changes to the form.
Select the Table Columns icon.
Select the column to add to the form.
Use the cursor to drag and drop to rearrange the column's position on the form.
Click Save.
In order to make these changes available to all users, click Publish.

New Column Considerations

Column Data Type

The data type of a column controls how values are stored and formatted. It's important to consider how you want the data captured in your environment for reporting purposes and to ensure high data integrity. Some of the common column data types are:

Text: This is a free-form text column.
Text Area: This is used to display multiple lines of text and has a larger character limit than the Text option.
Date Only: This presents users with a calendar to associate the appropriate date to be displayed.
Choices: This provides users with a set of options to choose from.
Lookup: This allows users to reference a single record from a specific type of table.

Column Requirement

The column requirement allows you to indicate whether or not data is required in the column to save the record. This can help ensure that critical information is captured when a row is created. There are three column requirement options:

Optional: The row can be saved even if there is no data in this column.
Recommended: The row can be saved even if there is no data in the column. However, a + symbol will appear next to the column to indicate its importance.
Required: The row can't be saved if there's no data in this column. A * symbol will appear next to the column to indicate it's required.

More Column Data Types

Column data type	Description
Single Line of Text	This field can contain up to 4,000 text characters. You can set the maximum length to be less than this. This field has several format options that will change the presentation of the text. These options are Email, Text, Text Area, URL, Ticker Symbol, and Phone.
Multiple Lines of Text	This field can contain up to 1,048,576 text characters. You can set the maximum length to be less than this. When you add this field to a form, you can specify the size of the field.
Option Set	This field provides a set of options. Each option has a number value and label. When added to a form, this field displays a control for users to select only one option. When this field is displayed in Advanced Find, users can use a picklist control to select multiple options to include in their search criteria. You can define a single, global option set and configure Option Set fields to use that single set of options.
MultiSelect Option Set	This field provides a set of options, where multiple options can be selected. When added to a form, this field uses a control for users to select multiple options. When this field is displayed in Advanced Find, users can select multiple options from the list to include in their search criteria. You can define a single global option set and configure MultiSelect Option Set fields to use that single set of options.
Two Options	This field provides two options. Each option has a number value of 0 or 1 corresponding to a false or true value. Each option also has a label so that true or false values can be represented as “Yes” and “No”, “Hot” and “Cold”, “On” and “Off” or any pair of labels you want to display. Two option fields don’t provide format options at the field level. But when you add one to the form you can choose to display them as radio buttons, a check box, or a select list.
Status	A system field that has options that generally correspond to active and inactive status. Some system attributes have additional options, but all custom attributes have only Active and Inactive status options. You can also include custom state transitions to control which status options are available for certain entities.
Status Reason	A system field that has options that provide additional detail about the Status field. Each option is associated with one of the available Status options. You can add and edit the options.
Whole Number	Integers with a value between -2,147,483,648 and 2,147,483,647 can be in this field. You can restrict the maximum or minimum values in this range. This field has format options None, Duration, Time Zone, and Language that change depending on how the field is presented.
Floating Point Number	Up to 5 decimal points of precision can be used for values between -100,000,000,000 and 100,000,000,000 can be in this field. You can specify the level of precision and the maximum and minimum values.
Decimal Number	Up to 10 decimal points of precision can be used for values between -100,000,000,000 and 100,000,000,000 can be in this field. You can specify the level of precision and the maximum and minimum values.
Currency	Monetary values between -922,337,203,685,477 and 922,337,203,685,477 can be in this field. You can set a level of precision or choose to base the precision on a specific currency or a single standard precision used by the organization.
Date and Time	This field has format options to display Date Only or Date and Time.
Image	Each entity that supports images can have one image field. When an entity has an image field, it can be configured to display the image for the record in the application.
Lookup	A field that allows setting a reference to a single record of a specific type of entity. Some system lookup fields behave differently.
Owner	A system lookup field that references the user or team that is assigned a user or team-owned entity record.
Unique Identifier	A system field stores a globally unique identifier (GUID) value for each record.
Customer	A lookup field that you can use to specify a customer, which can be an account or contact.