Hi there, 

I would like to have some advices regarding technical feasibility  of a need and its various possibilities. 

Currently, we have a multi-select list that has no dependency and no limit with 7 items in it.

Now we want to be able to choose items and also say the quantity for each items selected.


Creating 7 other number type fields won't be a best practice and will for sure burden the page layout. Plus it will probably be confusing for users. 

I'm now thinking of replacing this multi-select list by a new custom object with the same name : 
 - Record Name (standard field) with type auto-number
 - A picklist field called "Type of animal" with the same values as the previous multi-select list
 - A number field  "Number of animals" that will allows us to fill the quantity 

In addition to this, in the related list of Leads, i'll only show 2 fields Type of  animal & Number of animals. It will still be editable if needed or also deleted if it's no longer the case for the selected lead. 

This method will allow us to keep a light layout on lead and also do the required reporting when needed. 

I would like to know : 
1- Is there a better way to achieve this without adding a new custom object ? 
2- Is this a best practice, considering creating tiny object for one purpose ?
3- I also need to Consider the fact that i'll have to update all existing records that have existing values in this multiselect list to match this evolution and of course number field will have a null value. 

Here is the related list on lead with the new object :