Dropdown List and Multi Select Dropdown List
Overview
Dropdown list and multi select dropdown list are the data types in Gainsight which allow you to create a custom dropdown list or multi select dropdown list. Multi select dropdown list is used when a user wants to store multiple values for the same record, whereas dropdown list is used to store a single value for a record.
You can create custom categories of either dropdown list or multi select dropdown list and define items in each category. You can find the standard dropdown lists and create custom dropdown lists in Administration > Data Management > Dropdown Lists. You can create custom fields in the standard and custom objects with datatype as Dropdown List, or multi select dropdown list, and select an associated category for mapping to this field.
By default, Gainsight ships Customer Stage and Customer Status dropdown list categories for standard and system fields of Company object and these cannot be editable.
You will also see several other non-editable dropdown list categories for standard and system fields in the Dropdown Lists page.
Example of Drop down List
Your product is likely used by many companies that belong to various industries. To identify the industry of your customer, a field called 'Industry' of data type dropdown list can be created to use across Gainsight. The field has multiple industry options and allows you to select one. A particular company may belong to an industry: IT, Automobile, Aerospace, Software, Networking, etc.
Example of Multi Select Dropdown List
A field like Sales Country where a column might require multiple values from a specified list.
Create a Custom Category
You can create a custom category of either dropdown list or multi select dropdown list. To create a custom category:
- Navigate to Administration > Data Management > Dropdown Lists.
- Click +CATEGORY. Create category dialog appears.
- Enter the Category Name and Description: Category Name can contain the character length of 3 to 100.
- Select the Variant either Single Select or Multi Select for the respective dropdown list.
- Click ADD.
Add Items in a Category
You can add items to a Dropdown List either manually one at a time or Bulk upload through a CSV file.
Add Items Manually
To add items in a category:
- Click the Category Name (Country here) and click +ITEM. Add new item dialog appears.
- Enter the following in the Add new item dialog:
- Name: Can contain upto 50 characters
- Short Name: Maximum 20 Characters are allowed
- Active: Checkbox. If selected, the item is available for selection in other functionalities in Gainsight
- Item color: A random Item color is automatically assigned to the new Item. You can change the Item color as per your preference. This is the color that will show in the Report Builder when using this field for reports.
- Description: [Optional] Maximum 255 Characters are allowed.
- Click ADD. Select Add another to add an item and open new dialog to add another item.
- The items can be arranged in an order. You can Sort alphabetically or Rearrange the items with the SORT and REORDER buttons.
Notes:
- When data is loaded into the custom field with data type dropdown list or multi select dropdown list through any of the ingest channels, it is restricted to load data into the items defined in the custom category.
- If the field associated with a custom category is used in any other functionality, these dependencies of the custom category are shown in the Dropdown list dependencies section.
Add a Bulk of Items through a CSV file
Admins can create dropdown list items in bulk by uploading a valid CSV file which contains the list of items. The CSV file may contain the following headers:
- Name
- Description
- Short Name
- Active
- Color
Notes:
- CSV file should contain a Name header but the remaining headers are optional.
- You can create a maximum of 500 dropdown list items through a CSV file. Items more than 500 will not be added.
- CSV file size should be less than 1 MB.
- Name should be unique and it should contain a maximum of 50 characters which are only alphabets, numbers and special characters except Semicolon, Double quote, and Single quote.
- A maximum of 20 characters are allowed for Short Name.
- A maximum of 255 characters are allowed for Description.
Business Use Case: Admins can now save their time by quickly creating a bulk of dropdown list items through a CSV file rather than manually creating each of them. For example, If an Admin wants to create a dropdown list containing a list of 30 US states, they can be added as dropdown items through a CSV file, into the States category.
To create items in bulk using a CSV file:
- Navigate to Administrator > Data management > Dropdown Lists.
- Click +CATEGORY to create a new category. Refer to the Create a Custom Category section in this article.
- Click the required category name.
- Click +ITEM > Select From CSV. Upload CSV file screen is displayed.
- Click BROWSE and select the CSV file from your machine.
- Click NEXT. CSV Headers Mapping screen is displayed.'
- Map all the Item Attributes with the Source CSV fields.
Note: Mapping Name attribute is mandatory. - Click CREATE to add all the dropdown items to the category.
A confirmation banner is displayed showing the number of items added successfully and the number of failed items, if any.
- In case, all the items are added successfully, click Dismiss.
- In case, all or some of the items are failed to add, click Download to view the CSV file with the reason for failure.
Following are the most common errors:
- Duplicate Name: CSV file contains duplicate dropdown item name.
- Active is invalid: Status other than TRUE or FALSE is invalid.
- Name string is null/Name is empty: Any name field in the CSV file is empty.
- Name length exceeds 50 characters: Characters of any name field in the CSV is more than 50.
- ItemColor is not valid: Hex code for color is incorrect.
Rectify all the errors in the CSV file and re-upload to add the remaining dropdown items successfully.
Assigning Default item(s) to a Category
You can assign one default item for a dropdown list and multiple items up to six can be assigned to a multi select dropdown list category. If a null value is ingested into the field through any data ingestion channel, the null value will be replaced with the assigned default value into the field. To assign a default value:
- For a dropdown list category, select an item from the Default Category as shown below:
- For a multi select dropdown list category, click + to add items defined in the category to set them as default. You can select one or multiple items up to six as default items.
- Click DONE to save the selected default items.
Create a Dropdown list for Dependent Categories
Dependency in dropdown lists allows you to select the items in a Dependent dropdown list based on the selection of items in the Controller dropdown list. You can add fields on the Dependent and Controller Categories and create a Relationship between them as Controller and Dependent. When these fields are used in any consumption area, system allows users to select the item(s) in a Dependent field based on the selection of an item in the Controller field. To see Dependent categories section, navigate to Administration > Data Management > Dropdown Lists.
Controller: It is a category which has a list of dropdown items. Each item in the controller can control a set of items in another category (Dependent).
Dependent: It is a category which has a list of dropdown items. Some or all items in the dependent category can be in correspondence with an item from its Controller category.
Note: Category is a Dropdown List that contains a list of items.
Example: When you want to store Country and State of a CSM in an object, You may create a field Country and map to a Dependent field named State. When a user in a consumption area selects an item in the Country field, another dropdown list appears to select a State also. More information about configuration of the Dependent and Controller categories are shown below.
Usage of Dropdown List Categories:
- Dependent dropdown list categories can be used to create fields, while configuring the Timeline Activity Types.
- Fields of dependent dropdown list category type can be used to enter Company data from the Data Operations page.
To create Controller and Dependent Categories:
- Navigate to Administration > Data management > Dropdown Lists.
- Add a Controller Category (Ex: Country) of Single select type, and add items (Country names). For the detailed information about how to create a category, refer Create a Custom Category and for adding items, refer Add Items in a Category.
You will see the list of items added to the Controller Category (Ex: Country) as shown in the following image.
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- Add a Dependent Category (Ex: State) of Single or Multi select type and add items (State names). For the detailed information about how to create a category, refer Create a Custom Category and for creation of items, refer Create Items in a Category.
You will see the list of items added to the Dependent Category (State) as shown in the following image.
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- Click +DEPENDENCY in the Dependent Categories section in the Dropdown Lists page.
- In the Controller field, select a category (Country here) and in the Dependency field, select a category (State here). Dependency field depends on the Controller field and items in the Dependent category varies as per selection of an item in the Controller category. See below for the configuration of Dependency.
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Select an item in the Controller category (Country). Select the corresponding items in the Dependent category (State) to map with the selected item in the Controller category. In any consumption area using a dependency category, every time you change the country (Controller item), the list of states (Dependent items) will change accordingly.
Note: Controller dropdown list shows only categories of Single select whereas Dependent dropdown list shows both the Single select and Multi select categories -
Select an item from the Controller category (one Country name) on the left pane and its corresponding items from the Dependent category (State names here) on the right pane.
In any consumption area using a dependency category, everytime you change the country (Controller item), the list of states (Dependent items) will change accordingly.
Note: Controller dropdown list shows only categories of Single select whereas Dependent dropdown list shows both the Single select and Multi select categories.
- Click SAVE. Items in a dependent category are now mapped with the respective items in a controller category.
Create a field of Dropdown List or Multi Select Dropdown List
You can create custom fields in the standard and custom objects with datatype as Dropdown List, or multi select dropdown list, and select an associated category for mapping to this field.
To create a field of dropdown or multi select dropdown list:
- Navigate to Administration > Data Management > [Select an object into which you want to create a custom field].
- Click ADD FIELD. Add field dialog appears.
- Enter the following details:
- Display Name: The easily understandable display name
- Field Name: The system defined field name with a suffix of __gc
- Data type: Select either Dropdown list or Multi select dropdown list.
- Category: This shows the associated categories of dropdown list or multi select dropdown list. Select the appropriate category. This maps the category to this custom field.
- Click ADD. Custom field of the type dropdown list or multi select dropdown list is created. For more information on creating a custom field, refer to Gainsight Data Management.
Create Controller and Dependent Fields
To create a Controller and Dependent field:
- Navigate to Administration > Data Management. Select an object in which you want to create Controller and Dependent fields.
- Click ADD FIELD and create a field (Country here) of data type Dropdown List and map to the category Country as shown below.
- Add another field (State here) of data type Dropdown List and map to the category State and select Controller as Country as shown below. Dependency between Dependent and Controller fields is now created.
In a consumption area where data from an object is used, if a user selects a Country, the corresponding item State can also be selected.
Note: You can create dependent fields of single select or multi select dropdown list data type whereas you can create controller fields of single select dropdown list only. This allows users to select multiple items in a dependent field.