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Administering Oracle CRM On Demand > Application Customization > Record Type Application Customization Page > Defining Cascading Picklists

Defining Cascading Picklists

Cascading picklists restrict the values of one picklist, the related picklist, based on the value selected in another picklist, the parent picklist. For example, a parent picklist might present a list of service request Categories and drive the value of a related picklist called Sub-Categories. When the user selects, for example, the value Installation for Category, the Sub-Categories picklist is dynamically constrained to show only the picklist values that are associated with the Installation Category.

You can link together multiple picklists, including both pre-defined and custom picklist fields, as cascading picklists. You can also nest cascading picklists, so a related picklist in one cascading picklists definition can be a parent picklist in another cascading picklists definition.

If you have a number of nested cascading picklists, and if you update the top-level parent picklist value, then your updated values are reflected only in the first level of nesting, as shown in the following example:

• You have a cascading parent picklist called Account Type and a related picklist called Account Priority.
• You have a second cascading parent picklist called Account Priority and a related picklist called Account Category.
• You have an Account record with the following values:
  • Account Type. The value for this field is Customer.
  • Account Priority. The value for this field is High.
  • Account Category. The value for this field is Platinum.
• If you update the Account Type value to Partner, then the value for Account Priority is automatically reset. However, the Account Category value remains unchanged.

You can use picklist fields that contain values that are mapped to picklist value groups in cascading picklists. However, in a cascading picklist definition, you can specify only one set of relationships between the values in the parent picklist field and the values in the related picklist fields, regardless of whether you select a picklist value group in the Picklist Value Group list when you define the cascading picklist. For more information about how cascading picklists work with picklist value groups, see About Cascading Picklists and Picklist Value Groups. For more information about picklist value groups, see About Picklist Value Groups.

Before you begin. Before you create a cascading picklists definition, the parent and related picklists must exist and be visible in your page layout. The parent picklist must be visible in order to filter the related picklist values. For information about creating picklists, see Creating and Editing Fields. To perform this procedure, your role must include the Customize Application privilege.

To create a cascading picklists definition

1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click the Admin global link.
2. In the Application Customization section, click the Application Customization link.
3. In the Record Type Setup section, click the link for the required record type.
4. In the Cascading Picklists section, click the required Cascading Picklists link.

   The record types listed include the parent record type and related record types that have custom picklist values. For example, for opportunities there are links for Opportunity Partner, and Opportunity Competitor.

5. In the Cascading Picklists page, do one of the following:
   • Click Edit or Copy to modify an existing cascading picklists definition.
   • Click the New button to create a new cascading picklists definition.

     The Cascading Picklists Wizard guides you through the process.

6. In Step 1 Select Picklists, select a parent picklist and a related picklist.
7. In Step 2 Select Values, you can:
   • View the existing associations between a Parent Picklist value and the Related Picklist values. When you select a value in the Parent Picklist Available Values list, the available values for the related picklist are shown in the Related Picklist Available Values list, and the values that will be displayed are shown in the Related Picklist Displayed Values list. If there are no values in the Related Picklist Displayed Values list, all of the values in the related picklist will be displayed when the corresponding value in the parent picklist is selected.

     NOTE: If picklist value groups are defined for your company, then to help you to verify that your configuration of the cascading picklist correctly meets your business needs, you can select or highlight the picklist value group in the Picklist Value Group list. When you select a picklist value group, the Parent Picklist Available Values list and the Related Picklist Available Values list show only the values that are mapped to the picklist value group that you selected.

   • Create a new association. Move the desired value from Related Picklist Available Values to Related Picklist Displayed Values.
   • Remove an existing association. Move the value from Related Picklist Displayed Values to Related Picklist Available Values.
8. In Step 3 Confirm, you can confirm your selections of Related Picklist values for each Parent Picklist value, and then click Finish to complete defining the cascading relationship between the Parent and the Related picklists.

   Clicking Finish in the wizard returns you to the Cascading Picklist List for the current record type.

   After you click Finish, and add the cascading picklists definition to a page layout, it is automatically activated for all roles that include that layout.