The choice column allows an administrator to define a predetermined list of values from which a user can choose from. When building iSheets for your project, you may wish to trigger actions based on the values entered in specific columns. These actions could include making another column appear or disappear, or sending an email alert, based on a particular value being entered. In order to successfully implement such behaviours, you should use a Choice column to ensure consistent data entry.
To add numerical values to a choice column, you can define it as a score column. These values may be manipulated and displayed in calculation columns.
Enter choices
The first step in creating a Choice column is to create the different values that your users can select from. To do so, click the Add button to add a choice. Each choice will be presented as another row in the table, as seen below. Enter the choice values by left-clicking in the first field titled the Enter choice column. At least one choice is required; you may add as many choices as needed. The same value cannot be entered twice in the list of choices.
Values in the list of choices can be removed by selecting the checkbox next to the value and clicking Remove. However, a value cannot be removed if any existing iSheet items include that value. Those items need to be deleted or the value in that column for those items must be changed first. Values in the list of choices can be modified later, for example, if there was a spelling error in the original list. In that case, the changes will propagate to any items that had included the original value. The main danger of changing a choice value is if there are any column conditions, view filters or email alerts based upon the changed value. Any such conditions will need to be manually modified to match the new value.
Select colour
Formatting can be applied to each of the choices you create. Each choice can be assigned a colour, which will be applied to the value once it is viewed in the iSheet table view.
Left-click the color square to access the picker, or alternatively, left click in the text field next to it to enter a hexadecimal color value manually.
Select image
In addition to applying colours to choice values, you may also add images to display alongside them in the iSheet module. Such images can serve as a visual indicator when reviewing data within the iSheet. iSheets has its own image library, much like the image library in Collaborate which is used to store images added to Wiki or Blog articles. The iSheets image library is located within System Administration (System admin > iSheet admin > Image library), and therefore a user will need to have System Administration access in order to load images into this library so that they are available to be assigned to choice values.
Admin view:
Module view:
Once a System Administrator has added the desired images to the iSheet image library, Site Administrators can assign them to choices by clicking Browse to the right of each choice, and then selecting the image to assign. Once the image is selected, click Done to confirm the action.
Images should generally be small, no larger than 44 x 44 pixels, to prevent any disruptions to the formatting of the iSheet table. If you are assigning images to choice values, you may need to increase the column width in order to accommodate both the image and the choice text.
Cached images in choice columns
We have implemented a cache to reduce image load times to seconds. Image choices are now cached until the browser is refreshed manually, ensuring the rapid and accurate display of all multiple-choice column images.
To add numerical values to a choice column, you can define it as a score column. These values may be manipulated and displayed in calculation columns.
You can either add a new Choice column or 'upgrade' a current Choice column. Click on Manage Columns in the iSheet and then click on the Choice column. Change the Column Type to Score as shown below.
Sorting choices
The order in which the choices appear can be changed by selecting the checkbox next to the item and using the up or down arrows to move the choices up or down in the list.
Display method
Once you have created the choices, you can choose one of three methods to display them to your users:
Drop-Down Menu:
The Choice options will be displayed in a drop-down list and a single selection can be made. This option should be used if you have many values to display, as this will be a better use of space in the input form.
Radio Buttons:
Radio buttons allow you to display each choice vertically. As with the drop-down menu, only one value can be selected. Once a selection has been made there is no way to deselect all values as you can in a drop-down list that can be set back to none.
Checkboxes:
Checkboxes allow a user to select multiple values from your choice list. Use this option if you want to allow users to select multiple applicable values.
Include "Other" option
Checking the include Other option will present a text field allowing the user to free type an alternate value. Be aware that if you are building conditions relating to this column, then you may not wish to allow users to choose Other and enter their own value. It may mean certain conditions or email alerts are not triggered.
Default value
The default value appears in most column types, but can be used to good effect in a Choice column. If a Choice column has several statuses (Requested, In progress, Complete), you may want to make that column visible, but not editable to users, as it is for the Administrators to determine the appropriate status based on the current stage of the task. However, if a user is creating the new record, this would mean that the status choice column would not have any value in it. By setting a default value, you predetermine the value of the field when the record is created, and in this way can trigger any email alerts or column conditions based upon that value.
Search configuration
You can decide if a choice column is included within the iSheet search, and the way your users can search choice column values. By default, Allow search and Multiple selection in search are selected.
If searching multiple selections is allowed, users may run an advanced search from the iSheet module and select one or more choice values for their search results. In this example, the user would retrieve any items that had either Administrative Assistant or Executive Assistant as the value selected for Position.
However, if Single selection in search is selected, users may only choose one choice value at a time to search for:
