A picklist serves as a dropdown menu containing pre-defined values, allowing users to select only one of these predetermined options. The authority to add or delete picklist values is exclusive to the Administrator. This article serves as a guide to Picklists in Salesforce: Types and Properties.
Properties of Picklist fields
- Restricted
- Restricted picklists prevent users from adding new values.
- You enable a restricted picklist by choosing the “Restrict picklist to the values defined in the value set” option during the creation of a custom picklist.
- Dependent or Controlling
- A dependent picklist refines the available values for one picklist based on the selection made from another picklist or a checkbox (referred to as the controlling value) on the same record.
How to define values in a picklist
- Set individual values when you create the picklist. These are specific to a single picklist field.
- Use the built-in set of values for the standard picklist fields that come with your Salesforce org.
- Create a global value set. A global value set is a custom set of values you create to share with more than one picklist field.
Types of Picklists in Salesforce
Standard Picklists
- Standard picklists in Salesforce refer to the predefined sets of values that come with your Salesforce organization without any additional customization.
- Eg: Lead Source picklist found on the Lead object.
- These picklists are part of the default configuration and are available for use immediately upon setting up your Salesforce instance, serving as out-of-the-box options for data entry and categorization.
- Standard picklist fields in Salesforce may utilize a common set of values, known as a standard value set.
- For eg: Lead Source picklist values are part of a standard value set. This same set of values is also employed on the Account object for the Account Source picklist field.
- Therefore, any modifications made to the values within the Lead Source picklist settings, such as adding or changing values, will be reflected in the corresponding Account Source picklist field, ensuring consistency across related objects.
Custom Picklists
- Custom picklists are those that users create to tailor their Salesforce instance to specific needs.
- Users have the flexibility to add their own values and configure the behavior of these custom picklists.
- To initiate the creation of a new custom field with a picklist type, navigate to the respective object from the object manager.
- Click “Fields & Relationships.”
- Click “New,” choose “Picklist,” and click “Next.”
- Name the field
- Select “Enter values,” with each value separated by a new line.
- Enter your desired values.
- Optionally, arrange the values alphabetically or opt to use the first value in the list as the default value, or both.
- We can restrict the picklist’s values to an admin-approved list.
- Set field-level security, select the page layouts where you want to include the picklist field.
- Click “Save” to complete the creation of the custom picklist field with the specified configurations.
Custom Multi-Select Picklists
- Pick this option if you want your users to select more than one value from the picklist.
- Multi-select picklists have a minimum limit on the total number of values.
- It is possible to convert a custom picklist to a multi-select picklist to allow for multiple values in the field at a later time.
- When converting a multi-select picklist to a non-multi-select picklist field, existing records will have their values cleared, and the new field will only allow a single value.
- When referencing multi-select picklists in reports, use “contains” or “includes” instead of “equals” to capture all results that include more than one value.
- In report results or dashboards, selections from multi-select picklists are treated independently. For instance, if one record has values a, b, and c, another has b and c, and another has only c selected, there will be three distinct groupings: one for a;b;c, one for b;c, and another for c.
To know more, click Default ‘picklist’ values in Salesforce
Take Five Consulting is a technology company, based in Virginia U.S., that specializes in the Mortgage Banking vertical especially LOS implementation and application development. Take Five Consulting creates and implement mortgage technology and software specifically for Mortgage Industry.
