Set a Power Apps Dropdown Default Value from a SharePoint List

Let me show you something that trips up a lot of folks when they’re building Power Apps. You’ve got a dropdown menu, and you want it to show a specific value by default—pulled straight from your SharePoint list. Sounds simple, right? Well, it can be a bit tricky if you don’t know the exact steps.

I’m going to show you how to set a Power Apps dropdown default value from a SharePoint list with a scenario. We’ll build a simple employee leave request app that automatically displays the employee’s department in the dropdown based on their SharePoint profile.

What We’re Building

Here’s the scenario: You have an employee database in SharePoint with names and departments. When someone opens the leave request form, you want the department dropdown to automatically show their department. No hunting through lists. No extra clicks.

Set a Power Apps Dropdown Default Value from a SharePoint List

So let’s get started!

Step 1: Set Up Your SharePoint Lists

First, we need to create our SharePoint lists. We’ll need two of them.

Create the Departments List

Go to your SharePoint site and create a new list called “Departments.”

Add these columns:

• Title (this comes by default) – rename it to “DepartmentName”
• DepartmentCode (Single line of text)

Add a few sample departments:

• IT (Code: IT)
• Human Resources (Code: HR)
• Finance (Code: FIN)
• Marketing (Code: MKT)

This gives your dropdown something to pull from.

Create the Employees List

Now, create another SharePoint list called “Employees.”

Add these columns:

• Title (rename to “EmployeeName”)
• Email (Single line of text)
• Department (Lookup column pointing to the Departments list)

To create the lookup column:

• Click “Add column” → “Lookup”
• Name it “Department”
• Select “Departments” as the source list
• Choose Title [DepartmentName] as the field to show

Add yourself as a test employee with your email and pick a department.

Step 2: Create Your Power App

Open Power Apps and create a new canvas app.

Click “Create” → “Blank app” → “Tablet” or “Phone” layout (your choice).

Connect to SharePoint

1. Before anything else, you need to connect your app to those SharePoint lists.
2. Click “Data” in the left sidebar. Then click “Add data” and search for SharePoint.
3. Enter your SharePoint site URL and select both lists:

• Departments
• Employees

Click Connect, and you’re good to go.

Step 3: Add a Modern Power Apps Dropdown Control

Now, letR