Being able to rely on the information added by your Pipeliner users is key to being able to effectively segment and report on your data. Using validated fields - Dropdowns, Radio and Multi select checkbox fields - on Forms in Pipeliner is an excellent way of making sure that the most important information that you need to use for filters and reports is entered in a consistent way. Validated fields have an associated list of values that is created and managed by Pipeliner Admins. Users have to select values from the list - they are unable to type their own choices - which eliminates incorrect values and typos.

This article has an introduction to using Fields & Forms if you are not familiar with using this area in the Admin Module.

Enter the Admin Module — from the Pipeliner CRM Application, click on the App Switcher in the top left corner and choose “Administration” ⤵

​NOTE: Only Users with Admin Rights will see the Administration menu

Select "Fields & Forms" from the menu and then click on the tab for the Entity that you want to create your new field for and then click on the Fields tab. For this article, we’ll use Accounts.

Click on the “Create New” button to add a new field ⤵

Next select your Field Type from the list ⤵

Name your field and then start adding the values that your users will pick from ⤵

The list can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the sort button and individual items can be moved within the list using the arrow to the right of the sort order number. The sort order number is important as it affects the order in which values are sorted when you use the field in List Views and Reports. Values can be deleted by clicking on the bin icon (see section on deleting values later in this article) ⤵

When you’re finished adding your values, you can “Edit Permissions'' to set the field as read-only or invisible for certain user roles if necessary.

Click on “Save” to finish creating your new Field and then you’ll want to add it to a Form so your users can use it.

Remember to “Publish” to make your fields available for use within the web application.

If your list of values is long, you’ll want to import the values for validated fields instead of entering each value individually. It’s also possible to add/replace/update existing values by first exporting, then editing and then re-importing updated values. These options are available for out-of-the-box Pipeliner fields as well as custom fields.

Select an existing Dropdown, Multi Select Checkbox or Radio field and the “Bulk Add” and “Export” buttons will be available. For a new field, create and save the field and the options will then display when the new field is selected ⤵

Clicking on the “Export” button will export all current values from the field to a csv file which can then be amended and re-imported using “Bulk Add”.

When importing values, for Dropdown and Radio fields, paste the values with the text followed by a comma and then the sort order number. Each value must be on a new line.

For Multi select checkbox fields, values must be pasted in the correct order and separated by a new line ⤵

You need to be very careful when deleting values from dropdown lists. If the value is in use on records within the application, the next time a user opens that record and makes any change, when they go to save their changes they will get error messages on screen because the existing value in a dropdown field has subsequently been deleted and is now invalid ⤵

Ideally, you would filter all records which have the value to be deleted already selected and bulk update to a new value prior to deleting the value from the list in the Admin Module.

An alternative is to add a placeholder value to your list that indicates to users that values should not be used ⤵

When a user is filling in the field, they would see that options below your placeholder should not be used. This is not an ideal long term solution but it does buy you time to update your data prior to deleting values ⤵

NOTE: if you’re using a dependent dropdown, you can also remove the value as an option which means that users will no longer be able to select it, regardless of the options selected in the first (parent) field.

Admins enter or import a list of values and users may select a single value from the dropdown list when entering information into the field (or leave it blank - unless the field is set as required on the Form) ⤵

The sort order of the values in List Views and Reports is determined by the sort order number entered by Admins when the list of values is created ⤵

Custom (i.e. user-defined not system/protected) dropdown fields can be set to be dependent on the value selected in another custom dropdown field by selecting a field from “This dropdown is dependent on” ⤵

Once the dropdown parent has been chosen, map the values that should be available for the user to choose from when a corresponding value has been selected in the parent field ⤵

Once added to the Form, saved and published, your users will then be presented with only the values in the second field that are related to their choice in the first ⤵

Admins enter or import a list of values and users may select multiple values from the list when entering information into the field (or leave it blank - unless the field is set as required on the Form) ⤵

When adding a Multi select checkbox field to a Form, you can make the field required and choose the minimum number of options that your users have to select in order to save or edit the record ⤵

Users will then be prompted to choose at least the specified number of options ⤵

By default, all values that you add to the list are visible on the Form ⤵

This works well when the list is quite short but can use up a lot of space on the Form as the number of items to choose from increases so there is an option to “Enable advanced Multi Select visualization” when creating or editing your Multi select checkbox field ⤵

If you select this option, it changes how the field displays on the Form so that it takes up a lot less space. Users click into the field to see the available options and the currently selected values display beneath the search box ⤵

Radio fields present all available values on screen and the user may select a single value at a time (or leave it blank - unless the field is set as required on the Form) ⤵

Radio fields work really well for short lists ⤵

If your list is longer than 4 or 5 options, you’d probably choose a Dropdown field instead.

Validated fields can be used in List Views, Reports, Filters and Automatizer processes.