Importing to dropdown workaround?

[pmrafc (Paul)]

Hi there, I’m trying to import a column in a spreadsheet which is a multiple choice dropdown list into a dropdown column.

I realise there’s not a way to do this directly, as Support have confirmed, but I’m posting to see if there might be workaround ideas.

One post I’ve seen from February 2021 gave screenshots showing that if you convert a text column to a dropdown column it will create multiple entries in the dropdown list for each word in the text column for that item for each word separated by a space (contrasting it with enclosing the text in “” to make just one entry in the dropdown). That would be a workable solution, but I can’t reproduce that action - has something changed? I get a single entry in the dropdown whether or not the text is enclosed in quotes.

Another option is whether you can combine/merge multiple columns (either text or status columns) into a single dropdown dropdown?

That would also be a workable solution, as I could split the entries into separate columns before upload, upload them to separate status/text columns, then combine those into a dropdown.

Any ideas/suggestions welcome.

[mark.anley (Green Llamas Consulting)]

Hi @pmrafc - I believe I may have been the one that originally posted the way to ensure drop down options were split when converting a text column.

It appears the functionality has changed, however, you can still make this work by having your options separated with a comma (no quotation’s needed)

In the example below I had a text column with 1,2,3,4 and each is made its ownn dropdown option when converted:

I hope this helps!
Mark

[pmrafc (Paul)]

Hi Mark

That’s really helpful, thank you for showing how that works!

In case others are looking at this, it’s essential that the different options are separated by commas but must not have spaces in between them. If there are spaces, only the first option will be populated in the dropdown.

Many thanks again,
Paul