Is it a multiselect optionset? Nope… it’s an N:N lookup

If you ever wanted to have your own multiselect optionset which would be utilizing an N:N relationship behind the scene, here you go:

It works and behaves similarly to the out-of-the-box multiselect optionset, but it’s not an option set. It’s a custom PCF control that’s relying on the N:N relationship to display those dropdown values and to store the selections.

Turned out it was not even that difficult to build this – all that was needed is to combine Select2 with PCF

The sources (and the solution file) are on github: https://github.com/ashlega/ITAintBoring.PCFControls 

This is the first version, so it might not be “final”, but, so far, here is how this control is supposed to be configured:

• You can use it for any single line text control
• There are a few properties to set:
• 

Linked Entity Name: “another” side of the N:N

Linked Entity Name Attribute: usually, it would be “name” attribute of the linked entity

Linked Entity ID Attribute: and this is the “Id” attribute

Relationship Name: this is the name of the N:N relationship (from the N:N properties page)

Relationship Entity Name: this is the name of the N:N relationship entity name (from the N:N properties page)

Some of those properties could probably be retrieved through the metadata requests, but, for now, you’ll just need to set them manually when configuring the control.