Why can't PowerApps see my Custom SharePoint Lists?

Question

I've been working on a PowerApp which uses SharePoint Lists to store its data. When I manually create the lists within SharePoint, I can see these when adding the Data Source in PowerApps - however, as this app is intended to be deployable by end-users, and each deployment will use data from a different site, I need to automate provisioning of the lists.

This is where the issue arises - I'm using the asset provisioning features of SharePoint Framework to deploy the lists into a SharePoint site. Effectively, the user installs a SharePoint App, and the App creates the lists. Once that's done, the user will deploy the PowerApp Template and go and hook up the data sources to the new lists. Still not ideal, but better than asking the user to create the lists themselves (and expecting them to get all the list and column names and types just right).

The problem is that PowerApps doesn't show these new lists when adding the data source.

These are my lists as shown in the Site Contents of the SharePoint site:

When adding a data source in PowerApps:

Here is an example of how the lists are defined within the SPFx app:

TicketCategoriesElements.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<Elements xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <Field ID="{0c955283-e025-4e89-aeb9-760cda26f7a3}"
           Type="Text"
           Name="CategoryName"
           DisplayName="Category"
           Description="Category"
           Required="FALSE"
           MaxLength="100"
           Group="Service Desk Power App" />

    <ContentType ID="0x0100311831B2631E44E5B5119247C6C44BA7"
                 Name="TicketCategory"
                 Group="Service Desk Power App"
                 Description="Defines a Ticket Category.">
        <FieldRefs>
            <FieldRef ID="{0c955283-e025-4e89-aeb9-760cda26f7a3}" />

            <FieldRef ID="{fa564e0f-0c70-4ab9-b863-0177e6ddd247}" Name="Title" Required="FALSE" Hidden="TRUE" />
        </FieldRefs>
    </ContentType>

    <ListInstance CustomSchema="TicketCategoriesSchema.xml"
                  Title="Ticket Categories" 
                  Description="List of Ticket Categories."
                  Url="Lists/Ticket Categories"
                  Hidden="FALSE"
                  FeatureId="{00bfea71-de22-43b2-a848-c05709900100}"
                  TemplateType="100">
    </ListInstance>
</Elements>

TicketCategoriesSchema.xml:

<List xmlns:ows="Microsoft SharePoint"
    Title="Ticket Categories List"
    Url="Lists/Ticket Categories List"
    EnableContentTypes="TRUE" DisableAttachments="TRUE" FolderCreation="FALSE" DisableGridEditing="TRUE" NoCrawl="TRUE" NavigateForFormsPages="TRUE" VersioningEnabled="TRUE" MajorVersionLimit="50" MajorWithMinorVersionsLimit="0" Experience="New" Direction="$Resources:Direction;" BaseType="0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
    <MetaData>
        <ContentTypes>
            <ContentTypeRef ID="0x0100311831B2631E44E5B5119247C6C44BA7" />
        </ContentTypes>
        <Fields />
        <Views>
            <View BaseViewID="1" Type="HTML" WebPartZoneID="Main" DisplayName="$Resources:core,objectiv_schema_mwsidcamlidC24;" DefaultView="TRUE" MobileView="TRUE" MobileDefaultView="TRUE" SetupPath="pages\viewpage.aspx" ImageUrl="/_layouts/images/generic.png" Url="AllItems.aspx">
                <XslLink Default="TRUE">main.xsl</XslLink>
                <JSLink>clienttemplates.js</JSLink>
                <RowLimit Paged="TRUE">30</RowLimit>
                <Toolbar Type="Standard" />
                <ViewFields>
                    <FieldRef Name="CategoryName"></FieldRef>
                </ViewFields>
                <Query>
                    <OrderBy>
                        <FieldRef Name="ID" />
                    </OrderBy>
                </Query>
            </View>
        </Views>
        <Forms>
            <Form Type="DisplayForm" Url="DispForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
            <Form Type="EditForm" Url="EditForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
            <Form Type="NewForm" Url="NewForm.aspx" SetupPath="pages\form.aspx" WebPartZoneID="Main" />
        </Forms>
    </MetaData>
</List>

The lists all deploy correctly, they're all visible in the SharePoint site, content can be added / edited and removed as normal - but PowerApps insists that they're not there.

(Yes, I can type the list name into the Enter custom list name field and it connects, but that's not exactly user friendly). As an aside, they're not visible in Flow either, but again typing the name manually works!

I've tried a few different TemplateType values, including 100, 120 and 0, none make a difference.

Can anyone see why the lists aren't visible in PowerApps?

Answer 1

To answer my own question, in case others stumble upon the same issue - it is not possible to see SharePoint Framework deployed lists in PowerApps or Flow, and this is considered "by design" by the PowerApps team.

After opening a premier support ticket, Microsoft have confirmed that this is caused by SharePoint Framework lists setting the IsSystemList flag during deployment, and that these lists are therefore intentionally hidden by PowerApps.

At time of writing, the SharePoint team are considering whether to accept an Engineering Change Request for this to change the deployment behaviour for this type of list. PowerApps have confirmed that they do not intend to make any changes at their side in relation to this issue.

It is therefore quite unlikely - again, at time of writing - that this issue can be resolved for anyone else who experiences it. The only options are to either manually create your lists, or when connecting the data source in PowerApps to manually, and individually, type the name of each list (as opposed to ticking several lists at once).

Answer 2

In Power Apps Studio, open the app that you want to update, select Data on the left-pane. Select Add data > Connectors > SharePoint. Under Connect to a SharePoint site, select an entry in the Recent sites list (or type or paste the URL for the site that you want to use), and then select Connect.