I Have Another Bad Field-ing

If you read my last post, you know all the reason why I dislike using the checkbox. And after that whole rant, you may be thinking what could be worse than the checkbox? If you’re a seasoned admin, you already know the answer. The dreaded multi-select picklist.

Now I’ll be honest, at first, I thought these were the greatest fields. They can hold a lot of data, reducing the number of fields on a page. Logically, they make sense to use when categorizing information such as the modules a customer purchases or languages spoken by a contact. The problems come when you start wanting to do more.

To start with, reporting on a multi-select picklist is a nightmare. Trying to write a filter that includes a multi-select picklist is frustrating at best, and more often much worse. Good luck trying to sort by them, or heaven forbid you want to make a chart plotting counts of each of the values. Instead of splitting the count, you end up with variations of every possible combination and your chart is completely meaningless.

Begin at the beginning

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” ~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

This post actually has nothing to do with beginnings. Or endings for that matter. What it really has to do with is the rabbit hole that is the internet, and how I don’t think that such a bad thing.