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Administering Oracle CRM On Demand > Application Customization > About Picklist Value Groups

About Picklist Value Groups

Your company can limit the values that are available in a picklist field to a subset of the values that are defined for the field, so that you can make a given picklist field on a record type available for all users in Oracle CRM On Demand while limiting the values that appear in the picklist in the field. To limit the values in picklist fields, you set up picklist value groups and then map the values in the picklist fields to the picklist value groups. In this way, the set of values that a user can select from a picklist can be controlled by a picklist value group.

You can add the Picklist Value Group field to the page layout for some record types. This field allows the user to select any picklist value group that you have created. Then, in any picklist field that is controlled by the picklist value group that is selected on the record, only the values that are mapped to the picklist value group appear in the picklist. A picklist field that is controlled by a picklist value group is controlled in the same way when the picklist field is used in a cascading picklist. For a list of the record types in which picklist value groups can be used, see Record Types That Support Picklist Value Groups and Divisions.

For example, assume that your company has three call centers that use Oracle CRM On Demand. Depending on the location of a call center and the products that the call center services, some of the values in a number of picklist fields in Oracle CRM On Demand are not valid selections for users in the various call centers. In such a case, you can set up three picklist value groups; that is, one picklist value group for each call center. You can then map a subset of the values for each of the relevant picklist fields to each of the picklist value groups. After you add the Picklist Value Group field to the page layouts for the record types, users can select the appropriate picklist value group for a call center in the Picklist Value Group field on a record. Then, the choices in the picklist fields on the record are limited to the values that you mapped to the selected picklist value group for the call center. Controlling the available values in picklist fields in this way can help you to reduce the risk of invalid data being recorded on the records.

About Picklist Value Groups and Divisions

If your company uses the Division record type, then you can also associate divisions with picklist value groups. For information about divisions and how to set them up, see Division Setup. Each division can be associated with one picklist value group only. If a user is associated with one or more divisions, then when the user creates a record of a record type that supports divisions, the user's primary division is automatically assigned to the record. If the Division field and the Picklist Value Group field are both present on the Detail page layout, and if a picklist value group is associated with the user's primary division, then the Picklist Value Group field on the record is populated with the name of that picklist value group. Then, in any picklist field that is controlled by the picklist value group, only the values that are linked to the picklist value group appear in the picklist. For more information about the behavior of the Division and Picklist Value Group fields when records are created and updated, see About Divisions and Picklist Value Groups on Records and About Picklist Fields, Picklist Value Groups, and Divisions.

For information about setting up picklist value groups, see the following topics:

• Considerations When Setting Up Picklist Value Groups
• Process of Setting Up Picklist Value Groups
• Creating Picklist Value Groups
• Mapping Picklist Values to Picklist Value Groups

Related Topics

See the following topics for related information:

• Division Setup
• About Divisions and Picklist Value Groups on Records