How to Link Two SharePoint List Items Using a Dropdown
Question details
The user wants to link two items within the same SharePoint list using a dropdown menu on a modern form.
- Product
- SharePoint Online
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Customizing a modern SharePoint form to reference and link to other items dynamically within the same list.
- Observed behavior
- Standard SharePoint Online modern forms lack a built-in control to automatically list item titles from the same list and create direct hyperlinks to them.
Ensure you have the necessary permissions to customize SharePoint list forms (usually Design or Full Control) and have access to Microsoft Power Apps in your Microsoft 365 environment.
Customize the SharePoint Form Using Power Apps
Use Power Apps to create a custom dropdown control that populates list item titles and generates a hyperlink to the selected item.
SharePoint Online's default modern forms do not offer a standard control for linking items within the same list dynamically. Integrating with Power Apps allows you to build customized logic to populate a dropdown with item titles and generate clickable hyperlinks to those specific items.
Navigate to your SharePoint list, click on 'Integrate' in the top command bar, hover over 'Power Apps', and select 'Customize forms'.
In the Power Apps Studio, select the 'Insert' tab from the top menu and add a 'Dropdown' control to your custom form canvas.
Set the 'Items' property of the Dropdown control to your SharePoint list name so it successfully populates with the titles of your list items.
Add a 'Label' or 'HTML text' control. Configure its 'OnSelect' or 'HtmlText' property to build a dynamic URL linking to the SharePoint list item's display page using the ID from the selected item in the Dropdown.
Click 'File', choose 'Save', and then select 'Publish to SharePoint' to make the customized form live for all list users.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Can I link list items natively in SharePoint without using Power Apps?
No, standard SharePoint Online modern forms do not provide a built-in control to automatically list and link titles from other items in the same list. You must use Power Apps to implement this custom behavior.
Can I use a Lookup column instead of a custom dropdown?
A Lookup column can reference data from another list or the same list, but it does not natively render as a clickable hyperlink to the item in the modern form view without applying additional JSON column formatting.
How do I request native dropdown linking features in SharePoint?
You can submit a feature request or vote on similar existing ideas at the official Microsoft SharePoint Feedback Community portal to encourage Microsoft to add this native functionality.
