SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2088679 - What is a Picklist? - SuccessFactors Platform

Symptom

  • What is a Picklist?
  • Where do I find documentation related to Picklists?

Environment

SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite

Resolution

A picklist is a configurable set of options from which a user can make a selection, typically in a drop-down menu or smart search list. You can define the picklists used in your system to limit the values a user can enter in a form, preventing them from entering an invalid value.

For example, there are many places in the system where users must select a country, such as in an employee's home address in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central or the location of a job requisition in SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. The Country picklist defines the countries that are available for users to select in the user interface.

Picklists can also have a "parent-child" relationship, in which options in the child picklist are associated with options in the parent picklist. These are sometimes known as "cascading picklists".

For example, in places where users must select country, they might also need to select a a state or province within that country. Rather than have one very long list of all the possible states and provinces in all countries, you want the options in the State picklist to be dependent on the Country selection. In this way, users can only choose a state or province that is within the country they selected. To do this, you would set up the Country picklist as the "parent" and each corresponding State or Province picklist as its "children".

Note: Historically, picklists in different SAP SuccessFactors solutions have been managed using different tools: the Picklists import/export tool for legacy picklists and the Metadata Framework (MDF) tools for MDF picklists. Management of legacy picklists is cumbersome and error-prone.

To alleviate this difficulty, we are standardizing the way picklists are managed in the system. All picklists in the suite will now be managed from a unified, easier-to-use Picklist Center tool, reducing the risk of errors and potential for data corruption. To accomplish this, all legacy picklists must be migrated to MDF. To learn more about the Picklist migration process, please refer to this documentation.

See Also

  • SAP Help Portal - Picklists
  • 2088658 - Picklists: Working with Legacy Picklists (Importing, Editing and Creating) - Platform
  • 2504047 - Legacy to MDF Picklist Migrations | Migration Guide
  • 2328179 - Legacy to MDF Picklist Migrations | Post-Migration Information - SuccessFactors

Keywords

picklist, picklists, picklist center, legacy picklist, dropdown, drop-down , KBA , sf picklist , LOD-SF-PLT-PCK , Picklist Management Issue , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors HCM Core all versions