Creating a Pie Chart in Power Apps from a Text Column in SharePoint

Visualizing data from a SharePoint list often feels straightforward — until you discover that the column you want to chart isn’t numeric. Many lists store categories such as Low, Medium, and High as plain text.

SharePoint can’t convert text values into a chart on its own, and using Power BI just for a single visual isn’t always ideal. A lighter alternative is to use Power Apps to group and count text values, then display them in a pie chart embedded directly on a SharePoint page.

The steps below walk through the full process.

If your SharePoint list contains a column with values like “Low,” “Medium,” or “High,” you won’t be able to build a chart directly. SharePoint requires numeric fields to calculate and visualize data.

Power Apps provides a way around this by allowing you to:

• Group records by the text value
• Count how many records fall under each text category
• Use this grouped dataset to feed a pie chart

0. Confirm you have permissions in Power Apps

Before building the app, verify that you have sufficient permissions in the correct environment. Without write/create rights, you won’t be able to build or save the app.

To check:

1. Go to the Power Apps admin site
2. Open Environments
3. Select the environment connected to your SharePoint site
4. Go to Settings → Users → See all users
5. Search your name
6. Review Directly assigned security roles and click on Manage user in Dynamics 365

You should have Environment Maker to confirm you have Write and Create permissions.

If you only have “Read,” ask your administrator to update your role.

You can also confirm by selecting Manage user in Dynamics 365 → Check Access.

1. Create the base Power App

Once permissions are confirmed and after making sure the correct environment is selected:

1. Go to the Power Apps website
2. Select Create
3. Choose Start with data
4. Pick SharePoint
5. Choose your site and list

Power Apps will auto-generate a basic app. You can remove most of the default controls and layouts.

Keep the main screen and container. We’ll use these to contain the chart.

2. Retrieve the internal name of the SharePoint column

Power Apps uses the internal name of a SharePoint column, not always the display name.

The internal name can be different from the display name when you’ve changed your column name, if the display name includes spaces, or if it has a symbol (like ”’” or accented characters).

To find it:

1. Open your SharePoint list
2. Go to Gear → List settings
3. Select your column (e.g., “Risk Level”)
4. Look for the value after Field= in the URL of the settings page

https://orgname.sharepoint.com/sites/SiteName/_layouts/15/FldEdit.aspx?List=...&Field=RiskLevel

“RiskLevel” is what you’ll use as the field name in your formula.

3. Build a collection that groups and counts the text values

This step converts a text column into a dataset your chart can use.

In App → OnStart, enter:

ClearCollect(
    colRiskLevel,
    Sort(
        ShowColumns(
            AddColumns(
                GroupBy(
                    YourListName,
                    RiskLevel,        // replace with your internal field name
                    GroupItems
                ),
                CountValue,
                CountRows(GroupItems)
            ),
            RiskLevel,
            CountValue
        ),
        CountValue,
        Descending
    )
)

What this does:

• GroupBy clusters items by the text category
• CountRows calculates how many are in each group
• ShowColumns returns a clean table
• Sort organizes the results from largest to smallest

After entering the formula, right-click App → Run OnStart to load the collection.

4. Insert the pie chart and connect it to your data

To add the visual:

1. Select your container
2. Go to Insert → Chart → Pie Chart
3. Select the chart in the Tree View
4. Under Advanced → Items, replace the default value with:

colRiskLevel

Re-run OnStart.

The chart will now display the distribution of your text values.

5. Format and deploy the app

You can now customize the style. When you’re happy with the colors and labels, save and deploy the app.

If you’ve built it in a developer environment, export your app and import the .zip file in the environment where you’re going to add the chart.

Then embed the app into your SharePoint page using the Power Apps web part.

This method is ideal when you want a lightweight visualization available to all users and:

• Your data is stored in SharePoint but isn’t numeric, or
• You don’t need the overhead of Power BI and extra licenses

Power Apps provides a simple and effective way to visualize text-based SharePoint data. By grouping records and counting occurrences, you can transform text labels into meaningful visuals — then embed them directly into your SharePoint site.

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