How to Add a Dropdown List

A dropdown list is a picklist that allows you to choose one value from a specific list.  Dropdown lists on online donation forms can improve the donation experience since donors can easily select the appropriate option from a concise, user-friendly picklist. Dropdown lists can also ensure data accuracy since donors are required to select their option from a fixed picklist where each value is assigned a unique mapping and donors are not required to input any text value that may result in human data entry error. This document will demonstrate how to add a dropdown list when building your custom online donation form on Causeview Impact Designer. This article also highlights the important dropdown list property components such as the picklist values, label name and backend data mapping that you should update when configuring the dropdown.

1) Go to your donation form and ensure you're in the Toggle Design mode. On the left, you will see the "Add Controls", within the "Form Fields", drag the "Dropdown" control over to the form area to your desired location.

2) The dropdown list will now appear on the form, and you will be able to customize the dropdown list's properties on the right.

3.  When updating the dropdown list's properties, there are three critical components to update:

a) Data List: A data list contains the available picklist options that will appear in the dropdown list and the picklist options' corresponding values that will write back to Causeview/Salesforce. Click on the magnifying icon to look up existing data lists you can select or create a new data list to use.

To select an existing data list that is available on the Data List Menu, you can simply click "Assign".

After you have selected or created the Data List for the dropdown control, you can further edit/update the picklist values within the Data List by clicking on the pencil icon.

You can update the Value (value that will write back into Causeview) or the Label (text that appears in the Dropdown on the form), and you can add/remove item(s) to the picklist options.

Once the Data List is complete, you can click "Save Data List" to replace existing data list or clone the data list to make a new version of the data list.

b) Label Text: The label text is the name you assign to the dropdown that will be visible on the form. The new dropdown Label Text will automatically default to "New Dropdown", so you can update the name accordingly.

c) Mapping: This determines where the selected picklist value will map back to in Causeview/Salesforce.  Simply click onto the magnifying glass icon to update the mapping.

A new window will appear, and you will have two options in selecting the mapping for this particular control.

Note: "Pull Metadata" retrieves the latest fields on the Causeview objects we sync up with. For example, if you add a custom field to the Transaction object in Causeview, and then go into Impact Designer form engine, the new custom field might not be available yet in Impact Designer. Therefore, you select "Pull Metadata" to get the new custom field available for mapping.

The first option is "Select from Schema" where you can manually select the object, and then the specific field within that object you would like to map back to.

The second option is "Select existing rule" where predefined rules are available for you to select if applicable.  (Note: since dropdown values may apply to multiple objects and fields, these rules are here for you to use so you may not have to create multiple mappings).

If you need to create additional mapping after selecting the schema and existing rule options, you can click on "Add Mapping" to repeat the process. If not, you can simply click "Save Mapping" to save changes.

4. You can further customize the new Dropdown list's properties on the right panel. Once you've finished, you can click "Save" to ensure all the new Dropdown's list changes will not be lost.

This concludes the instructions on how to add a Dropdown list for your custom online donation form on Causeview Impact Designer. A simple drag and drop of the Dropdown control onto the form, followed by ensuring critical components like name of the Dropdown to appear on the form, assigning the Data List on picklist values and updating backend data mapping are the basic steps when setting up the new Dropdown. Now that you understand the fundamentals of creating a dropdown, you can add/update dropdown lists as you see fit for existing and/or new online donation forms to improve donor experience and data accuracy.