Forum Discussion

CatPrizbrrrs's avatar
CatPrizbrrrs
Copper Contributor
Nov 04, 2021

Feature request: Filter for drop down choices

I've built a form with a drop down, multiple choice selection. The list is a long list of US states. 


It'd be great if a user could select the drop-down, and begin typing the first few letters of a state, and have it start reducing the answers. For example, typing "Ar" would filter the results down to "Arizona" and "Arkansas" to make it faster for filling out the form.

 

This is just an example of how'd it be useful. The real use case is with a lost list of server names, all sorted by state/location. The hunt and peck for a given server takes a long time, but if we could quickly sort down to at least a state's worth of options via that dropdown sorting, that'd be awesome.

 

Thanks

  • RobElliott's avatar
    RobElliott
    Silver Contributor

    CatPrizbrrrs while the filtering of dropdowns is not available in Forms you might want to consider creating your form in Power Apps where such a filter is very easy to do. You can then link it to a flow in Power Automate, another SharePoint list etc to store whatever data is stored in the form. Have a look at the attached video where I've done a very quick demo of the filtering of countries based on the letters the user enters into the text box at the top of the screen.

    There are very good introductory (and more advanced) Power Apps videos on YouTube by Shane Young and others. 

     

    Rob
    Los Gallardos
    Intranet, SharePoint and Power Platform Manager (and classic 1967 Morris Traveller driver)

    • CatPrizbrrrs's avatar
      CatPrizbrrrs
      Copper Contributor
      I do appreciate there are work arounds taking advantage of other features across Microsoft. It sounds like the workarounds I use for PowerBI datasets. So i can definitely go the route of making the form in Power Apps, setting up a Power Automate Flow, tying it into Sharepoint lists, etc...
      but also...
      That's a lot of workarounds to get a simple auto-complete on a Form. Imagine if I worked clerical HR and not in IT, and I wanted and easy-to-fill out form with US states in a list. Delving in Power Apps, Automate, and sharepoint is out of the question for clerical staff unused to setting up automation and dealing with MS power tools.

      So I still stand by the auto-complete/filtering feature request. I think it'd be a useful feature for MS to forms.

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