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thuskerthusker 

Formula field to return picklist value?

Back for some formula field assistance.  I am working with our IT team to set up a hierarchy structure on SFDC User records so they can trigger some dashboards off that info.  So I went to create the fields that they need . . . I have lookup fields on a user record that can be used to look up other SFDC users and put them into a spot on the hierarchy.  Those lookups bring back other data from that "manager user" record and shows them on the sales rep's user record (So on Sales Rep #1's user record, there is a lookup for Manager #1 (2, 3, 4, etc) and by selecting that person it returns data for that manager and puts it on the sales rep record for reference).  Hope that makes sense.  Anyway, it all works fine EXCEPT for one thing.  I want to have a field that pulls in another Manager field--but it's a picklist on the Manager User record.  And I get syntax errors when I try to do a formula field on the Sales Rep record to bring back the Manager User field value from that picklist.

 

So my question is . . . how do I build a formula field that can simply return the text based off a picklist driven field???  So if the Manager User record value selected from a picklist is "Country Manager", then how can I pull that Country Manager value to the Sales Rep user record?  I really want to use a picklist on the Managr record, otherwise I will run into data inconsistencies.

 

Any suggestions?  Can this be done?

rockchick322004rockchick322004
In a few short weeks (and in sandbox right now), it can be (easily) done!  As you found, you cannot directly reference a picklist field in a formula.  In Summer '09 we support TEXT(picklist) which converts the picklist value into text.  I think this is what you are looking for.  If you can't wait for that, the solution is to use the ISPICKVAL() function to determine the picklist value and then display the value.  This is painful because you need to type all of the picklist values into your formula...twice...so maintenance is challenging, but it does work.
thuskerthusker

Yes . . . I think that is exactly what I need!  I actually stumbled across that in the Summer 09 release notes later in the day and got pretty excited.  Thank you!

 

I think I'll wait for that release and not try to do the ispickval method . . . I could see the picklist getting rather long and that just doesn't seem like a very palatable option.  :smileyhappy:
jaredjared

Please share how I can "easily" place my picklist value into a formula field.


Thank you. 

 

Jared