Adding Pick Lists

Further Information on managing Picklists can be found under the Picklists section of this guide.

Picklists are essentially predefined lists of items that are available for a certain data field. These are then selected by a user when entering data. The user of picklists allow for enhanced validation for data through the prevention of multiple terms being used for the same data.

When entering or editing data, if you select a picklist data item, a drop-down list will appear with all of the items that have been configured.

Simply select one of these items to store a value.

To edit a Picklist item or to add further items, select the Picklists item from underneath the Configuration ribbon from either outside a project or within.

The Picklist Manager window will then appear showing a list of all the Picklist groups

To add a new Picklist group, select the Add Picklist option and enter a name as appropriate. New picklist items can then be added by selecting the Add New Item option and entering new values.

Once all of the items have been added as needed, select the save option. The picklist item will then need to be added to the field that is to hold the data. Browse through to Configuration – Model Structure, select the edit option that corresponds to the required table followed by the edit option that corresponds to the required field name. The DataType option within the Edit Heading option can then be changed to Picklist and the newly created item selected from the Picklist Group option.

To edit or add any further Picklist items to a field select the Edit option next to the field name. The Edit Pick List Group option will then appear allowing for further items to be added or existing items to be edited as needed.

To delete all of the Picklist items listed underneath a field, select the delete option.

Picklist CSV Import

Another option available for adding picklists to a group is via a CSV import. The process works in the same way as importing data or documents via CSV in that you can do this for a specific project or you can import into a Configuration Pack, see Add Picklist section.

You can import new Picklist items into an existing group or by creating a new group and adding them that way. The CSV file has to contain the following headers to be imported successfully: "Value" and "Description" you can also add Picklist Alias headers which will be covered later.

In the Edit Picklist group menu click Import CSV

Choose the appropriate CSV file from its saved directory and click Open.

Adding Images to Picklists

You can add Images to the Picklist group and the items using the Picklist Manager. For example, Location Type is a picklist group and has images to represent the different locations.

Select the group you wish to add an image to and choose edit Image. Choose the image you wish to add and Click OK. Most image types are supported but you may use jpg or png files by default.

The Edit Active Image option is used for showing a change of icon style when that picklist is selected. An example of where this might be used is to represent highlighted locations on the map. When you select the icon it becomes active so you can show a change of icon image to reflect this.

Picklist Aliases

You can apply an alias picklist within a group so that if data is imported referencing a picklist item with an alias name, that alias will correctly apply to the picklist value.

Picklist Aliases can be added to the picklist items once they are added to the picklist group or as part of the CSV import. To add an alias to picklist items already added to the group simply select the picklist item you wish to add to and click Edit Alias

Add what you wish to be logged at the alias and click OK.

If you want to add it as part of the CSV import simply add the header Alias 1 followed by the value you wish to add. You can add more than one Alias simply add the incremental number in the header for example Alias 2, Alias 3 etc.

Project Picklists

You can set up picklists to be used for the projects grid, these are configured at system level. In HBSI select the system tab and choose Project Picklists from the ribbon menu.

From here a Pick List Manager dialog box will be displayed which is the same as the Picklist Manager within the Configuration Pack. By default, there are two picklists set up "Project Category" and Project Status" to add a new picklist click Add Picklist.

From here you follow the same steps provided in the "Add Picklist" section of the user guide