SharePoint Drop Down List Other Option

Brass Contributor

Hi

 

We have a Sharepoint List and have a field set to "Choice"

 

In option we have the 3 drop down options with the last one being "other"

 

We have Allow 'Fill-in' choices tick to YES

 

We basically want people to be able to being a list of the top 3 most common options but if they need they can type in a answer.

 

This works, however during testing we noticed that when we put in a manual entry for the "other" it saves it and then next time we add another new list the previously added "other" option is added to the drop down this.

 

eg original drop down option

1

2

3

other

 

Create a new item in the list and during the creation of the entry on the drop down list manually add a entry of 4

 

When you create another new item you dropdown will now give the following option

1

2

3

4 **

other

 

So 4 was added because there is a item in the list with the number 4 in

 

Is there a way to stop this happening, so the drop down list is always kept to 

1

2

3

other

 

But also allow us to manually add a entry?

1 Reply
Yeah, seems like there's no option to disable that in the Modern List.
One possible workaround could be to have "Other" as an option in your Choice field and disable manual entries. Then, you'd have to create an "Other" field in the list, where you ask for the manual entry. You can tell in the description to fill this field only if the user has picked the "Other" option. It has the downside of being messy and adding a new field to the list, but it may also be easier for you to gather the results later. Let me know if it helps.