Multiple selections from drop-down list, enhance database function

Lynnette Batt

I saw this in a thread from 2015 but wanted to re-start it. Would love the option of being able to select multiple items from a drop-down list. This is handy for improving the database functionality. Many times I have sheets with dozens of projects/rows, and I need to list multiple values for a single attribute, then query based on a selection of those values. I can try to remember the values that I am using and enter them manually, but if I get the wording on one wrong it of course will not query correctly. 

 

Overall for SS to really shine need to enhance the database function.

Kara Lumley

Hi Lynnette,

Thanks for the feedback - the ability to select multiple items from a dropdown is in development

Best,
Kara

Bruno Paulo

Hi Kara,

Thank you for your answer but it seems that this enhancement is being discussed since 2015.

Do you know when we can expect some progress on this? By not having this function we need to put a free text cell which brings a lot of pollution to the data making it very hard, if not impossible sometimes to make reports out of it. Also the option of creating 1 column for each option is out of the questions as there are to many options.

Thank you in advance.

Bruno

Erin McMurray

I would also like to understand the timeline. We are planning to move over a number of projects that would benefit from this!

Kara Lumley

Hi Erin and Bruno,

Thanks for the feedback. 

First, I would like to apologize as I had misunderstood what we were building for the "Multi-Select" dropdown. I thought it would allow you to select multiple items from the dropdown list. What it will actually do, though, is allow a user, when filtering, to add an additional item to the filter list. I'm posting a screenshot below.  This is still in testing and I do not know the release date. However, because of this post, we will be re-naming the feature to alleviate confusion in the future.

Bruno, 

What we will be releasing soon (in the next 6 weeks) that may be helpful for you is data validation for dropdown column. 

This will allow the sheet admin to set up the values, and decide if users can overwrite them or not. This should give you much cleaner filtering and reporting. I'm adding screenshots below as well.

Thanks so much and Happy Smartsheeting!

Kara Lumley

Smartsheet Product Manager

Ciprian Borzasi

Now back to the initial request: are there any plans to add this much wanted possibility to choose multiple entries from a drop-down list?

I'm using the charts in SS Labs - the map chart is amazing btw - and would like to be able to choose multiple countries that are visualized properly on the map. Adding additional columns doesn't work in this case - one will end up with multiple maps/charts.

Cheers.

Ciprian

Ciprian Borzasi

Update:

I found a workaround by adding additional rows with the other values and indent them. That way I can collapse them so they're not visible, but at the same time the data is clean and can be used for charts.

Dilek Gözütok

Hi Kara,

Where are we with the development of this Topic? I Need that in my Project Management sheet too.

thank you for the update.

Best,

Dilek

SarahG

Agreed, it would be very useful to understand when this functionality is coming.  In the meantime, my list is short and I can create different variations in the dropdown.

akay

Another user looking for this feature.

On top of being able to select multiple options, I want to be able to see this reflected in my task bar color-coding. What I recall from using Trello previously is that you could have multiple "task bar" colors (not sure their name for it) assigned to a single entry. This way it's easy to identify at a glance that multiple options are applied to a row.



For example, I'm creating a social media content calendar, and I'd like to see that a post is going on both Instagram and Facebook in its color coding when I'm in calendar view.

jgrabic

Piling on - very surprised there isn't a way to select more than one option in a dropdown list. Please do add my request to the list of folks waiting for this update

Troy G. Biv

I also need this feature, otherwise I have to allow for 150 columns to accomodate each possible option from a list.

Bob Lundberg

This is vital to our continued use and success globally. There is a HUGE opportunity for this to go enterprise wide but without this simple feature, I cannot recommend enterprise use.

PLEASE add this!

Christian Gibson

Please add the ability to select multiple items from a drop down box in one column

dee.parker36466

I'd really like to see the functionality added to allow multiple select from a dropdown list.

dana.palmblad32676

I see from April 2017 the feature to allow multi-select from a drop down was in development.  Is this feature available yet?