Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Sharepoint how to accept a blank choice after the user inputs a choice column value

So a user had encountered an issue of creating a choice column but they want to set it to blank but the system does not allow them to save the blank value.

The column is A choice type with Yes/No.

  • Require that this column contains a value:  No
  • Choices
    • Yes
    • No
  • Display choices using:
    • Drop-Down Menu
  • Allow 'Fill-in' Choices:  Yes
  • Default value:  can be left blank

The user is allowed to save Yes/No or blank since the field is not required but when a user saves a value then the user is not allow to clear the selection.

so to resolve this the key is to allow the 'Fill-in' choices option to YES.

then in the validation formula:
=IF([column name]="", TRUE, IF([column name]="Yes", TRUE, IF([column name]="No", TRUE, FALSE)))

so for example:  if a field is called Have Driver License then the formula would look like the following:
=IF([Have Driver License]="", TRUE, IF([Have Driver License]="Yes", TRUE, IF([Have Driver License]="No", TRUE, FALSE)))

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3 comments:

  1. LizAugust 25, 2017 at 7:45 AM

    Just used this - literally been trying to fix this FOREVER. THANK YOU!

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  2. Qudsia00October 7, 2019 at 9:05 AM

    Thank you! Worked for me too. I got stuck pasting new rows of data where I had blanks for the choice field (as I needed user input in there), so it was even before user interacted with the column.

    This is my first time using a validation formula. It's strange why SharePoint would do something so stupid though-have an option for value not mandatory, then mandate a value!

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    Replies
    1. Qudsia00October 7, 2019 at 9:06 AM

      Btw, I was using SharePoint 2013, Enterprise edition.

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