Easy Wins: 3 Interesting Ways To Use The Choices Field

This month’s Easy Wins entry is all about the Choices Field, and how using it correctly can help smooth out your data capturing process.

Read on to find out how to use the Choices Field in alternative ways, how to filter out options based on initial choices, and how to create a handy summary at the end of your Form.

Enjoy 😁

Where To Find The Choices Field

The Choices Field is easy to find. In the Form Designer, it’s nested under “Basic Fields.”

With that out of the way, let’s look at three interesting ways to make the Choices Field work even better for you 😉

1. Dynamic Value

By default, the Choices Field allows a user to select displayed options. If, however, a scenario requires the opposite (all options start out selected), that’s possible with the Dynamic Value property.

Start by adding your choices and select the “Multiple Choice” property. Give each choice a value and then head to the Dynamic Value property. 

There, enter the choices (by value) that you want to have selected by default, and separate them with a bar (no spaces). 

For example… 

Field Type: Choices

Property: Dynamic Value

Formula: option1|option2|option3

 Additionally, this can also be triggered based on a user’s interaction (as seen in the above screenshot) from a button press.

Formula: 

IF({{btnAll}} = ‘Select All’ , ‘option1|option2/option3’, ”)

2. Filtering & Visibility

Based on a user’s previous selection, subsequent Choices Fields can be filtered by criteria to display relevant options. The Field’s visibility itself can also be driven using 1 of 2 Choices formula functions.

In our example Form, “Fruits” is the main category, and under this are berries, apples, bananas, etc. So when the category “Fruits” is selected in your first Choices Field, the subsequent Choices Fields will filter based on that. 

Now, how do we achieve this?

We use the SELECTED() function in the “Visibility” property, which checks if an option has been selected and returns a true/false value. 

For example…

Field Type: Choices

Property: Visibility

Formula: 

SELECTED({{choice1}} , ‘textOption’)

SELECTED({{choice1}} , numericOption)

3. Summary

Counting how many options have been selected in a Choices Field with the Multiple Choices property enabled can also be useful when creating a summary. That’s where the 2nd Choices formula function comes in handy, COUNT-SELECTED().

This formula returns the number of options selected all in one place.

For example…

Field Type: Text

Property: Dynamic Value

Formula: COUNT-SELECTED({{choices1}})

Additionally, by using the CONCAT() function, you can format the output as desired to display multiple Choices field counts.

Formula:

CONCAT(

COUNT-SELECTED({{choices1}}) ,  ‘ : Option1 ,  ‘n’ ,  

COUNT-SELECTED({{choices2}}) ,  ‘ : Option2’ ,  ‘n’ , 

COUNT-SELECTED({{choices3}})  ,  ‘ : Option3’ , ‘n’

)

This will display each Choices field’s count coupled with static text on a new line.

Before we wrap it all up, here’s a video of all of the above in action…

That’s A Wrap

We hope you’ve found value in the Choices Field – if you have any questions or need any help, please contact Customer Success. If you have any suggestions for future easy wins, or any other general enquiries, reach out to us on hello@appenate.com.

Finally, if you’re new to Appenate, click here to start your free trial (free training and support included).