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sunnydalesunnydale 

Dropdown Choice element showing as Required field when they are not

On the design canvas, I have 4 dropdown choice elements that do not show as required (e.g., no Red bar next to them, nor have I check any Required box in their definition).

 

But when the flow is run, all dropdown choice fields become required, with both a read bar to the left of the field and a clearly enforced required validation complaint if one tries to pretend they are options.

 

Any idea how I can avoid having all dropdown choice field being required?  I'm clearly missing something basic :smileyfrustrated:

 

RajaramRajaram

Are you using the new desiger or the desktop designer to create your flows?

RichJRichJ

One option is to add a choice with a label "Not Selected" and no stored value and then set this as the default option. It doesnt look great, but looks slightly better if this is the last choice is the list.

sunnydalesunnydale

New designer--not desktop.

RajaramRajaram

Dropdowns by its nature are always required... That is the reason there is no "required" option for that choice. However, the fact the cloud designer preview does not show it in the preview is something we will fix soon.

Radio buttons have the required option and does not force the user to pick an choice

MTBeitlerMTBeitler

I disagree with the statement that "Dropdowns by [their] nature are always required".

 

You are viewing it from a technical perspective which says that the field is required to have a value, even if that value is null/blank. However from a user's perspective, they see that red bar indicating "required" and think 'oh, I must click on this dropdown and change it to something other than blank, in order to proceed'.

 

There are sometimes within the progression of a series of pages when I don't want the user to proceed onto the next page unless they have selected a non-null/blank value from the dropdown and there are sometimes when I do want to allow the user to proceed without selecting a value from the dropdown. The ability to mark a Dropdown list required (or not) and the subsequent red indicator (or lack of red indicator) that tells the user what is expected are important UI nuances which I need to be able to express within a flow.

 

Please re-consider providing this as an option for the Dropdown List field.

 

Thanks.

 

-Matt Beitler
Chatham Financial

 

carrinpcarrinp

I agree - currently, we aren't going to be able to use the Dropdown List field because of the forced requiement. It is an issue for end users and creating a defult "None" field is not a viable workaround. Please consider changing this, as it lessens the value of the tool drastically.

 

Thanks!

JitendraJitendra
Currently there is no direct way to create none required dropdown field however it can be achived using Viualforce. We can wrap flow in Visualforce and with help of some jvascript, remove red mark and create option "-- None --" in dropdown. I have posted solution [1] as well to hope it will help few visitors in future.

[1] (http://www.jitendrazaa.com/blog/salesforce/creating-none-required-dropdown-field-in-flow/)