SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

2352794 - How to create cascading MDF picklists?

Symptom

  • How to implement cascading in MDF Picklists?
  • How to limit the values of a picklist depending on the selection of another picklist?

Image/data in this KBA is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental

Environment

  • SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite
  • Metadata Framework (MDF)

Cause

Picklist cascading implementation is a two part process.

1) We need to create picklists first and then establish parent-child relationship in those picklists as per requirement at customer's side. Please see this KBA 2861689 for that purpose.

2) Then we need to add field critera in the MDF object where the picklist type fields are being used.

Resolution

We are using example of Country=> State=> City cascading for this KBA. All the picklists should be ready like below following the KBA mentioned in point 1 above.

1) Picklist = Country

maincountry.png

2) Picklist = State

statemain.png

3) Picklist = City

main city.png

Once you have these ready then you need to have an MDF object which will contain all these parent-child picklist setup.

4) Create a custom MDF object (Generic object) to cascade these picklist. For eg. "cust_cascadingPicklistMDF"

obj def.JPG

5) Now, field criteria has to be added to get cascading property. Country is the top-level picklist which has no parent so for this picklist, you don't need to define field criteria.

field - 1.JPG

6) Open the child picklist field "cust_State" and in Source Field Name, write "parentPickListValue" and in Destination Field Value, write the field name, selection on which should control the values in this cust_State field. In this case, that parent field would be cust_Country.

field - 2.JPG

7) Similarly, add the field "cust_State" as Destination field value for the field "cust_City". It means the selection on the state picklist field will limit the values in the city picklist field depending on the selection made.

field - 3.JPG

After adding the field criteria, Save the changes.

8) Open the Manage Data page to test this setup. Create new instance for the object "cust_cascadingPicklistMDF".

md1.JPG

NOTE: All the fields will be blank at this point.

md2.JPG

9) Check Country dropdown and select Country as "USA" for example.

md3.JPG

10) Check State dropdown. You will observe that only the states mapped to USA are shown in the dropdown.

md4.JPG

11) Now, select any state from the State dropdown say California (CA) and then check for the City dropdown. You will observe that only the cities mapped to California are shown in the City dropdown.

md5.JPG

Save and you will see the data like below.

md6.JPG

NOTE: The cascading feature of the picklist is implemented using Field Criteria. Please make sure that it is correctly defined in the object at field-level.

See Also

2861689 - How to create MDF Picklist and set a parent picklist?

2955483 - Implementing Cascading Picklists on Background Elements/ EP portlets.

2856480 - How to create cascading picklists in MDF via Import?

Cascading Picklists | SAP Help Portal

Keywords

mdf picklist, cascading, association, picklist, mdf, parent picklist, parent, child picklist, field criteria, parentPickListValue , KBA , LOD-SF-PLT-PCK , Picklist Management Issue , LOD-SF-EC-BCI , Manage Business Configuration (BCUI) & Data Models (XML) , LOD-SF-MDF-PKL , Picklists , How To

Product

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central all versions ; SAP SuccessFactors HCM Suite all versions