Dependent Picklist

A Dependent Picklist provides a list of choices, where the available options are determined by some other value.

About Dependent Picklists

A Dependent Picklist can be based on a set of Radio Buttons or a standard Picklist. The value of that field is the triggering value. When that value is present in the record, or when the user selects a value in that GUI, the value determines which options are present in the Dependent Picklist.

For example, suppose you have a request management system for a software application. In that application, you have two major kinds of requests: Software (coding) requests and Documentation requests. A Dependent Picklist could be used to set up a different set choices for each kind of request:

Kind of Request	Request Type
Software	Bug Fix Feature Request
Documentation	Bug Fix New Feature Writeup Enhancement (new documents and improvements)

A single Request Type field can then be used for each kind of request, with an appropriate set of choices for each kind.

Learn more: Enumerated Fields

Adding a Dependent Picklist

This is a two-step process:

• First, create the triggering field (also known as the parent field).
• Then, for each possible selection in the triggering field, you specify which values appear in the dependent picklist.

To add a dependent picklist:

1. Create a triggering field and add values to it, where the possible triggering fields are:
   • Radio Buttons
   • Picklists

2. Create a new field of type 'Dependent Picklist

3. Fill in the basic field settings:

   Label

   The field label that will be displayed

   Display Type

   Dependent Picklist

   Parent Field

   • Select the "parent" field (created in the previous step)
   • Enter the picklist values

   Maximum Storage Length

   __TBD: Include standard size warning__

4. Click [Save]

5. In the Enumerated Values section, click [Manage Values] to specify the collection of possible values.

6. In the Dependent Picklist Associations section (at the bottom):
   • Click the [Add Associations] button.
   • Choose the Dependent Picklist Values to be associated with each Parent Value.

Considerations

• After a dependent field association is created, the Use Label for grouping option cannot be enabled for any of the parent or dependent field values. __TBD: huh?__
• A field cannot be deleted if it is the triggering value for a dependent field.
• If the triggering field for a dependent field is changed, a message appears telling you that data will be lost if the change is executed. Confirmation is required to proceed.

__TBD: Move these up:

• Values in a dependent picklist can be sorted alphabetically, but they can't be manually ordered.
• It is possible to specify that the first value in the list of values is always the default. Otherwise, there is no default.

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