In this article, we will review:
How to add or remove options in a drop-down menu
How to use a dropdown menu for inputting formula values
How to reuse dropdown menu options
Note: This article applies to form owners and creators only; Please contact your district people admin or another point of contact if you believe you should have form creator access.
How to add or remove options in a drop-down menu
If your district Forms Admin has set up Centralized dropdowns, you can follow these steps to apply them to your form.
- Click on the drop-down menu to bring up the Dropdown field's settings.
- To remove an option, click the "x" to the right of that option.
- To add an option, type it into the white box and click Add. You can add multiple options at once by typing in each option followed by a semicolon. Example: "Huffleclaw;Ravendor;Slytherpuff". Then click return to add these to the dropdown and return to the doc editor page.
Note: You can sort your list alphabetically/numerically, by scrolling to the bottom of the field box and clicking Sort choices.
4. Click Save from the main doc editor page to save your changes.
How to use a dropdown menu for inputting formula values
You can utilize a dropdown menu to input rates and values that are used for formulas on your form. This is a useful tool for any rates that may change from year to year. An example is the IRS mileage rate that is used on mileage, conference, or travel reimbursement forms.
To do this, you can create a dropdown menu. I can then add an option for "2022 July (0.625)".
You'll then want to ensure the value to be used in your calculations is in parentheses. We place the year away from the rate, and the rate in the parentheses as the formula fields are set up to choose the value that’s written in the parentheses when calculating the mileage cost and we don’t want the year (2022) to interfere with these calculations.
We can then use this dropdown field in our formula.
Total Claim = the Total # of Miles (F66) X the Mileage Rate (F67)
When an initiator chooses the rate from this dropdown menu, we can use this field's value in our mileage claim formula. Annually, you can just add another dropdown option for the newest rate. You'll still want to keep the older options there as these are associated with past submissions.
To ensure initiators know which option to choose, you can include a text field that is also updated annually.
If you would like to include an instructional popup like the one below,
Just reach out to us through the Support Widget with the text you'd like included and we we can make that update on the back end.
How to reuse dropdown menu choices
You can copy dropdown menu choices by clicking on "copy choices to clipboard". You can then create a new dropdown field on a form and paste these values in as your new choices.
