Salesforce IdeaExchange

6200

The ability to use a picklist value in a formula field without ISPICKVAL

Currently, it is not possible to use a picklist in a formula field just by inserting the merge field. Creating a text formula field, one would think that it is possible to display a value of picklist just by inserting the merge field into the formula. However, without using the ISPICKVAL function a picklist cannot be used in a formula field.

Please add the ability to use a picklist in a formula field without using the ISPICKVAL function.

hemm 01/05/07	Totally agree!!! If you have a sizable picklist and want the formula to output text for each value, you run out of space in the formula field very quickly. For example, for a list of 200+ countries, it is not possible to get the value you want in a formula and do something with it. This issue comes up in regular formula fields and in Winter 07's field update rules.
RDN_LHR 01/26/07	Absolutely!!! This has caused me unquestionable grief.
FrancisatAdvancedAlchemy 01/26/07	Please Please Please....If only we could do this. I posted a case 8 months ago.It was closed, but never resolved. ISPICKVALUE doesn't allow you to pick up the values from a Multi-Picklist. See my post below: 05/05/2006 19:02 \| Francis Tchertoff I would like to be able to use the CONTAINS formula, but I realise the Multi-Select Picklist probably only contains pointers to the values. on the other hand, when one exports an object to a file, MS Picklist values are listed as a semi-colon-delimited text field. If there was a Function called "GET PICKLIST VALUES ({MS Picklist_Name}) that created a semi-colon-delimited text field, I could then use all the other Text Functions such as CONTAINS. That would make my day!!!!! Dear Francis, Thank you for your feedback. At the current time, the ISPICKVAL function does not support the user of multi-select picklists. This is a known request that is currently being prioritized on our product roadmap. I have logged your case against this existing request. We value each and every request submitted by our customers and make all efforts to include your request in future releases.
WrogWrog 02/01/07	ISPICKLIST is fine for identifying if the field matches one particular case, but to find out what the value is from a possible list of 12 values is the biggest pain I have ever encountered in coding. It's completely back to front. Also, how can you detect if the picklist is set to --none-- ? It's not ispicklist(field,Null) .......
JonV 02/20/07	Agreed - we are caught in a trap - Picklists are great for UI and report selection but functionally broken for logic manipulation. A simple example, is needing to copy a mailing state code to another field - one approach might be to extend the TEXT() function to allow a picklist value to be selected. For instance to have a formula set a text field My_State = to the value of the Contact Mailing State Province, the code would be: TEXT(MailingState) Additionally it would be desirable to be able to update a picklist field to a value in a workflow rule based on a text value as well, however the basic functionality above would be very, very, very useful..
PolkPM 02/27/07	considering that this is easy with javascript, I am surprised that we can't do this with the APEX environment. This would allow no changes needed when picklists change.
ChrisMcL 03/15/07	I can understand using the ISPickVal function when entering data into a picklist field, but when retrieving the value also?
Eram 04/10/07	Absolutely agree- I need this feature to allow a manager user the option to manually over-ride values in a pick list. As others have described, the current method is extremely cumbersome.
sandrags 04/12/07	Totally agree - picklists are terrific for controlling entry, but not useful otherwise. To use a picklist value in a formula, you have to show the exact value, which means that every time the picklist changes (an admin function) the formula would have to change also (not a trivial admin function). What we need, among other things, is the ability to say: LEFT(picklist merge field, 2). Then the picklist is managed dynamically
cmarzilli 05/02/07	Yes - we very much need this!
TehNrd 05/21/07	This would be awesome! Please implement this idea. Right now we need to duplicate values in a picklist to another field and the only way to do this is with CASE(field, picklist value, value, etc) for every entry in the picklist. We hit the 1300 character limit in no time and when we try to split them up we get the compile limit.
CReid 05/22/07	Yeah it's ridiculous to not be able to do this. This is a huge shortcomming, giant Ispickvalue lines is NOT a solution.
AngusD 06/27/07	I am new to SF.com and have worked with Saleslogix, Act, and a number of custom opportunity management packages. I am floored that I have to trap for each value of a picklist with ISPICKLIST function. This limitation kills my ability to perform adequate validation checks and scripting. When is SF.com going to listen to their customers?
darh 06/28/07	I feel like I've just been thwarted by yet another missing feature: the ability to use multi-select picklist values in formulas. This seems so basic...
AbeP 07/28/07	Definately need this. Not practical currently to right formulas to use Picklist with large number of options.
sarahb 08/21/07	We really really need this. Hurry and implement this please salesforce.com!
wookaka 09/11/07	This feature is a MUST. The case function is not an option for me as it causes the formula to be too large.
DiceMan 09/14/07	This is only about the third formula I've created, and I've already run into this issue... Come on salesforce, this can't be that tricky surely!
Mack 09/26/07	Absolutely! The flexibility of SFDC is seriously constrained by this, and it seems an obvious feature to include.
RichGottesman 10/23/07	I, too, am totally shocked that I cannot simply refer to a selected picklist value in a formula. I am not interested in checking the value with ISPICKLIST or CASE or whatever, I just want to grab the CURRENT VALUE held in the picklist. This shouldn't even be in IdeaExchange because it's not an enhancement request. It's a non-discretionary shortcoming that should be fixed immediately. And along with the other developers who have posted here, we all know it's actually LESS work for Salesforce to make this possible. They have implemented code to prevent this, and all we're asking is that you comment-out the lines that restrict us from obtaining the value already set. I refuse to have to hardcode my picklist values with another picklist (so to speak) in a formula. Way too much maintenance and I do enough of that already. Please get this into a patch release immediately, or in Winter '08 at a minimum. Thank you.
Eric_Santiago 11/07/07	Seriously, why is this still an issue? Winter '08 and still no movement on this?
Gregory 11/09/07	Can we please get some feedback from a Salesforce production manager on this? Seems like it would very easy to enable this capability to reference a pick-list value as text. As previously mentioned, having to decode any reasonable cardinality of picklist values drives up the byte count to make it nearly impossible to use pick-lists in formulas.
Gregory 11/09/07	.
TehNrd 11/15/07	This really is required. I need to write a validation rule that includes a large picklist. Therefore I have to use Case or ISPICKVAL and I hit the character limit. What I will end up doing is writing some APEX code to enforce this validation rule. Alot of work that could have been avoided with a simple one line get value function.
jmao09132007 11/21/07	Yeah it's a surprise that this still remains an issue after Winter '08 Release. To apply it to single-value picklists should be very simple. But why isn't it happening?
PolkPM 11/27/07	this should be available for both formula and reports. You shouldn't have to go through each value with ISPICKVAL. This entails modifying formula when picklist changes. Also allows this would allow you to compare 2 picklists that have same values.
WrogWrog 12/03/07	Interesting to note that in the 12 months since this idea was originally posted, there has not been a single item of feedback from the good people at SaleForce themselves, though 3 of them have voted for it. Are we just a bunch of whining masochists hitting our heads against a brick wall? I appreciate that changing the way picklists are implemented is a big change to take on board, but even a "Forget it guys, we're not going there", would at least stop us wasting time commenting on this idea.
Peter_Rozek 12/06/07	YES! This is one of those things that I find hard to believe was overlooked by SFDC. It seems almost every time I write a formula field I bump into this problem. And updating IF and CASE statements is incredibly tedious.
thedge 12/08/07	Having to go through this everytime I'm working with a pickist field is incredibly frustrating. Given the changes to the platform in the last 12 months I find it difficult to believe that this was overlooked. This is a basic ability of any programming language which allows developers to work with picklists. I agree with the other posters....why doesn't a product manager from salesforce at least chime in and let us know what the hold up is.
ashish_ranjan 12/15/07	.
dlucia21 Jan 17	SFDC added a few more formula fields for the Spring '08 release. Unfortunately, this Idea didn't make it this time. It seems as though they'd rather make additions not enhancements. At this rate, I'd probably die before this Idea get's implemented. Thanks SFDC!!!
wookaka Jan 18	If you really want this fixed, be sure to log in and hit the Promote button towards the top. Per our Salesforce account rep, that is how to get them to work on this.
olkeith Jan 21	What I don't understand is why this limitation is not at the top of their list. What makes matters worse is the fact that there is not one response from a salesforce product manager about this. At least tell us you feel our pain... At the VERY least, we should be able to reference as a Text field, and we should also be able to use something like: ORISPICKVAL(picklist_field, text_literal1,text_literal2, etc... ) , or ANDISPICKVAL(picklist_field, text_literal1,text_literal2, etc... ) I know this would be a bandaid to the issue, but at least it would let me reference multiple values without eating up 20+ unnecessary characters per referenced value, as well as time. If I am missing something here, and there is a way to reference multiple values, without saying ISPICKVAL for each, please let me know. email: ksadler@orangelake.com
carramrod Jan 23	why is this not in the pipe for Spring08?
ta_invisible Jan 24	I too wish we could here from Salesforce on this. Implementing a solution for this problem must be more technical than I understand, and I'd like to hear from Salesforce just what that challenge is. Here's what I've noticed -- It appears to me that in the Salesforce UI, we see the "front end" of picklist values, but at the database level, picklist fields only hold "picklist value IDs", and those IDs reference a hidden table that holds the actual "front end" picklist values. To illustrate this, notice that when you are in setup for a picklist field and you edit an existing picklist value (for example, change the value "Waiting for Approval" to "Pending Approval"), any records that contained the edited value are automatically updated. I don't make any claims about being an expert, so if I'm wrong about front end picklist values being stored in a separate table, please educate me. C'mon Salesforce, PLEASE let us know what the technical challenges are with this issue.
albertokite Feb 5	Totally agree. We need a function to return the current selected value from a picklist (specially for picklist with a lot of items)
Jakester Feb 8	We really must have this, just as everyone here is saying. It's completely absurd that there is no way to return what a user selected. Instead, we have to take stabs in the dark. "Um... did you pick... this one? No? Ok... um... how about... this one? Dang, ok... how about..." How about fixing this Salesforce??
Christophe Feb 11	You could use an S-Control to bring the picklist value to another invisible field which in turn can be used in a formula: This can be used for long picklists, or picklist that are often changed. It allows to bring the text value of a picklist into a custom field. Object on which the control is applied: "Target__c" Name of the picklist field: "Mill_1_Style__c" Name of the field on which we copy the value from Mill_1_Style__c: "Right__c" S-Control: <html> <head> <link href="/sCSS/8.0/1171411121000/Theme2/default/common.css" /> <tds></head> <body> </body> </html>
Christophe Feb 11	The S-Control script is in Solution 00007074.
olkeith Feb 11	Does this run automatically?
Jakester Feb 16	Thanks, Christophe. I didn't quite understand your messages, but I logged in to my Salesforce instance, went to help, and searched for 00007074 and found the "S-control returns a picklist value without CASE or ISPICKVAL" solution. Now I have no idea how to use this - can anyone explain? It sounds promising, but I don't get it.
wookaka Feb 21	I tried that solution however it misses the mark. It is only displaying the value of the picklist in another field. It does not actually make the value of that picklist easily available for working with the data to do things such as reporting or combining with other fields. For example, I have a summary field which combines multiple fields of the same object into one summary field. The solution mentioned above would always return blank values for the new field. This is important for our company when listing variable data for different record types of a custom object, handling about 15 different picklists, each of which has about 10 to 20 values. All of that needs to go into one summary field. It all works great except for the inane method of getting the value of picklists. My last resort is to write code on a remote server to periodically pull the data and update it as necessary. It seems like an odd solution to need to write code when I'm using a product which displays a "No Software" logo to deal with its bugs.
ChrisMcL Feb 22	Why not use CASE? for example, if you have a formula that says calc 11, when the country__c field pickvalue is "Japan". Do this: CASE(country__c, "Japan", 11, country__c) If you hit the character limit, this format can be used across muliple split-up workflow actions using the default country__c. If you are doing more complicated mapping, build another picklist and make it dependent and then use formulas and CASE to look at the dependent picklist.
wookaka Feb 25	I'm currently using CASE and workflow rules which is a cumbersome work around. We have multiple picklists involved and over time each picklists is growing. This means that every time we add values to a picklist, I have to edit the picklist itself, multiple workflow rules, constantly watch character limits, if I hit character limits then start new workflow rules... all this because we can't simply call the value directly from the picklist. The whole point of this thread is to not have to use CASE. It's to make our lives as admins/developers easier. Why are we required to come up with all of these work arounds? The API's can directly access picklist values, why can't salesforce internal code access it?
Jakester Feb 27	Could someone please provide a little more guidance for how to get a field to display the values so they can be worked with? Wookaka? Christophe?
wookaka Mar 4	Within Salesforce, any field can be called directly to get the value from it. When it comes to picklists or multi-picklists, you must check the field with a function to get the value. Use the function ispickval or case to check every single value it could possibly be to see if it is that value, and if so, return the value (or another value). As described in this thread, this can be very tedious and may not even be a usable solution depending on the size/complexity of what your trying to accomplish. A work around if your code gets too long is to use workflow rules which use the ispickval or case functions to put the value into a dummy field which can then be called directly from other code. Both of these solution are problematic and can be an administrative pain. Please keep promoting so that Salesforce will get this one fixed.
atlasbb Mar 10	I agree, this feature (fix) really needs to be added.
kesco Mar 21	I've come across the need for this feature quite a few times already. Many times I've needed to write the value of the field to another field or use it in a formula but the list of values is too many (Ie Country picklist field)
tomq Apr 16	Please add this feature. The existing implementation is just poor.
it11062007 Apr 22	Missing this fundamental feature is a huge gap in the logical processing utility of Workflow. Please add.
johnthomson May 9	I can't believe that you can't get the value of a picklist without having to spell out the picklist value. We've got a list of picklist values that is added to frequently. If you have to name each value, your formula becomes obsolete as soon as the picklist values change. Please fix this.
Jakester May 9	I was just at a conference where the sales rep claimed that the top 50 ideas are delivered in "2.2 quarters". This was posted over 2.2 years ago and has still not been delivered. We need this!
Jakester May 9	I was just at a conference where the sales rep claimed that the top 50 ideas are delivered in "2.2 quarters". This was posted over 2.2 years ago and has still not been delivered. We need this!
david_danzig May 22	Also, this might alleviate the problem of updating a value in a picklist field with a formula - Currently, this cannot be done as formulas can't return picklist values!!!! e.g. !Task.Subject is a picklist field and cannnot be updated via workflow rule!
WrogWrog May 25	Wow! 2670 points, 54 comments, and STILL absolutely no input from SF. Is this a record?
EricB May 30	Wow, I'm reluctant to wade into this discussion, with so many strong feelings being expressed! You can all blame me for the much-despised ISPICKVAL function. I was the Formula Fields Product Manager who invented it. But it's not as if I like ISPICKVAL either. I hate it as much as you do. It was a result of a painful compromise reached with our development team to address concerns about performance of formulas in reports and bulk API queries. The technical challenge is that selected picklist field values are stored as integer ids (enums), and the picklist text is stored in a separate table. (This is to make it efficient to rename picklist values and support multi-language translations, among other things.) Formulas are converted into dynamic SQL queries every time you view a page, report, list view, etc., so it would be very expensive (performance-wise) to join the picklist table every time a picklist field is referenced in a formula. I can sympathize with the people who commented, "how hard can it be?" but I can assure you that it is difficult to support this in a highly scalable way in a multi-tenant architecture, or we would have done it a long time ago. Our developers are the best I have worked with in my whole career, so if there's a way, they will figure it out. In fact, there are a number of architectural enhancements that have to happen before we can retire ISPICKVAL, and we are in the process of making those. It will probably take a few more releases to get there, but we are determined to make it happen. In the meantime, I hope you will give us some credit for making great strides on formulas. The cross-object formulas introduced in Summer '08 are an extremely powerful enhancement. As annoying as ISPICKVAL is, I believe that cross object formulas are more important than eliminating ISPICKVAL. We have also been adding new functions (e.g., VLOOKUP, REGEX, ISNUMBER), increasing the maximum allowed size of formulas, and adding new contexts in which formulas are available -- workflow, approval processes, scontrols, Visualforce pages, etc. We value your candid feedback, so keep those ideas & comments coming! Thanks, Eric Eric Bezar VP Product Management, force.com
jmao09132007 Jun 17	But Cross-Object Formula can't be used in a roll-up summary.
manapoli Jun 19	I can't believe that you can't get the value of a picklist without having to spell out the picklist value. We've got a list of picklist values that is added to frequently. If you have to name each value, your formula becomes obsolete as soon as the picklist values change. Please fix this. (johnthomson - sorry about the plagarism!). Thanks.
ta_invisible Jun 20	Eric, thank you for the feedback. It may not be what we wanted to hear, but it seems like an up-front, real explanation of the technical challenges. I, for one, appreciate getting that explanation from you. I wish I could see feedback like yours on all the other Ideas that have been highly promoted, yet seemingly ignored by Salesforce management.
jcoppedge Jul 2	I get the scalability issue. Here's my problem. Let's say I want to do a text formula on a the picklist field Type. All I have to do is create a formula field called Type_Text__c and put a giant case statement in place for every value that is present in my Type field. Type --> Type_Text__c (Case statement) This functionality exists, its just a pain in the ass to maintain. Instead of disabling it entirely, why not just put limits on it... for instance the length of the formula field that would be necessary to compute my above example... or a maximum of 25 values for a picklist with computations? Summer 08 has made some amazing strides and I love it. This just seems like one of those basic functionality pieces that is still entirely absent.
angela_hudson Jul 3	This Idea should be combined with the "The ability to use Multi-Select Picklists within formulas" Idea.
dsekules Aug 1	I'd add my own vote to the suggestion that the "TEXT()" function could be extended to return the text of the picklist field value, or indeed the values in semicolon-seperated format if it's a multi-select picklist. Surely this can't be beyond your developers' capabilities, and it would be oh-so-very extremely helpful if, like me, you're trying to do anything even remotely complex with a sizeable list of possible values. Please. This is needed sooner rather than later.
WrogWrog Aug 5	I echo ta_Invisible - It's good to get real feedback, even if it isn't a simple "it's in the next release". There's not enough evidence that IdeaExchange is being used by SF to guide development. For our part, we are mostly creating new objects and linking lookup fields to them ti provide new "picklist" fields - it's a sledghammer to crack a nut, but it has the advantage that we can expose the list of values to be edited in a controlled way by specific users. Formulas referencing these fields are also a little less frustrating than using ISPICKVAL. So we only have problems with SF standard picklists or where we need a picklist to appear in the portal.
sparky Aug 5	I have to agree with everyone here that this is overdue at this point. Some great suggestions and points have been made by the community here. I think jcoppedge's comment from July 2 is particularly relevant. You guys are holding off on this for performance reasons, but people are making this happen w/ kluges anyway. Doing a giant case statement w/ ISPICKVAL can't be good performance-wise, right? So rather than saving performance in the end, you're just wasting developer time and mindspace. You can reference a picklist field's value in apex code, let's get the native platform in line with the language.
philippehamard Aug 12	I absolutely agree.
neil_wingate Aug 15	Ditto, Ditto, Ditto,..... times 65. I am trying to setup a work around where the related list detail page has a picklist, which they can select, and code it in so the name field then receives that value....the intention being that the ever-present name field is not wasted.....but it is not at all easy....
adminisaurusrex Aug 27	This is killing me. I need to use picklists in formulas without having to define every single possible value. Please make this happen. What I have done in the past is to go to the picklist field and copy/paste the print view into excel. Then I create a formula to mimick each variable for the Case function. Then I paste the results into the SF Case function. This works but does not update automatically for newly added values. And the compiled character size is huge.
Jakester Aug 27	This got passed up again! The Winter '09 release features have been determined, and this is not part of them. Gah!
wookaka Sep 2	To get around this I made an PHP API script that runs on a remote server every 5 minutes, it queries for any changed records and does an update back to Salesforce based on multiple picklist fields. Its not a bad solution except for two problems 1) The script updates the record which causes a loss of the real last person who updated the record. 2) I have to explain to people to wait 5 minutes to see their change take affect. I appreciate EricB's insight into the issue but I sure can't wait until this is resolved.
hpPMO Sep 12	Eric, it is Sept now, any update here? Atleast change the Text function to return text value of picklist or ; separated value in case of multi-picklist. The cross-object will be more powerful than ever then
VIKTOR Sep 15	Product family on the standard Product2 table is picklist. We started using that and we have more than 6000 products now. It has become a nightmare to address this with out wild card functionality. Hope this will be done soon.
happygirl Sep 16	I certainly would love to see this happen. I typically do not know a great deal about formulas except for my Access Programming days where this was so easy. So I just spent an hour trying to figure this out only to find out it can not be done without a great deal of work and maintanence. So I would love this to be enhanced and I am hopeful it will be in Spring 09. I believe Salesforce can get it done.. Actually I challenge them.
happygirl Sep 16	I certainly would love to see this happen. I typically do not know a great deal about formulas except for my Access Programming days where this was so easy. So I just spent an hour trying to figure this out only to find out it can not be done without a great deal of work and maintanence. So I would love this to be enhanced and I am hopeful it will be in Spring 09. I believe Salesforce can get it done.. Actually I challenge them.
WendyM Sep 18	I cannot believe that since 2006 this hasn't been fixed. We need to retrieve values from a picklist in a formula. Our picklists has tons of values so I am not going to add a condition for each one of them, it makes no sense. SFDC comes up with great features in each release but this request is BASIC! Let’s cover the basics first.
redhorizon13 Sep 18	While I can appreciate the need to optimize for database performance myself, I have to say that I don't think the performance hit was worth the effort of building the workaround or the incovenience to the clients, especially considering the fact that it's possible to work around the limitation at a much greater resource cost. The SQL generated by such a query would be something along the lines of SELECT p.value FROM picklist p, object o WHERE o.pickid = p.pickid; While there would be a minimal performance hit from such a simple join, versus doing nothing, the performance hit of clients working around the issue by typing in If(ISPICKVAL(field,"value1"),"value1","")& If(ISPICKVAL(field,"value2"),"value2","")& If(ISPICKVAL(field,"value3"),"value3","")& ... to compensate for every possible picklist value (especially for the standard piclists that are allowed an unlimited number of entries) would simply be astronomical. In the end, all the restriction does is make people angry because they have to maintain a giant formula every time the change available picklist values, and potentially cost MORE resources...
EricB Sep 26	Hi everyone, I'm sorry to report this didn't make it into the Winter '09 release. We know this is a pain point for customers -- the reality is that we have a lot of high priority initiatives and limited development resources, and this just didn't make the final cut. In the meantime, there is a workaround that you can use if you have Enterprise or Unlimited Edition: Create a custom text field ("MY_PICKLIST_TEXT__C") to represent the text value of a picklist field, and write a big CASE statement in a workflow field update formula to populate the text field based on the picklist value. Then you can reference the MY_PICKLIST_TEXT__C field in your other formulas, instead of the picklist itself. Yes, this is a pain in the neck. Yes, it means a manual step every time you change picklist values. Yes, it is lame that we don’t do this automatically. But at least it gives you an option until we address this in the product. I would also encourage you to continue lobbying your friends and fellow customers to vote for this idea. It is currently only #26 on the list of the most popular ideas on IdeaExchange, so even if we addressed the top 10 ideas every release, this one would still be 3 releases away. By the way, I will be giving a talk at Dreamforce 08 in the "Admin to App Builder" track about formula internals & limitations, if you want to learn more about this topic (or just to yell at me and throw rotten tomatoes). The session is called "Building Smarter Apps Using Formulas". Thanks, Eric Eric Bezar VP Product Management, force.com
Jakester Sep 26	Thanks, Eric! Obviously not what I want to hear, but I appreciate the feedback anyway. I'd point out that the workaround you provided is not an option if the picklist has more choices than the character formula limit allows, too. Here's to seeing it in Spring '09!
Jakester Sep 28	One other question, Eric- you mentioned that it's #26 on the list of most popular ideas - is there anyway that I can see what that complete list looks like?
marktn Sep 30	Agreed, this should be higher that #26. Admins and Developers are a huge chunck of the life blood of Salesforce. Throw us a bone.
jenbryant Oct 14	Agree with all! Please shoot for Spring 09 release!
mattiasnordin Oct 22	If i could take all my other votes and add them here i would. To bad i could only add 10 points. I have created a case statement as a workaround but that recently failed when the picklist was updated with about 50 records, i simply started crying and gave up. Retriving the pick list value should not be rocket science!!! The custom object we created is hard to use if i cannot fetch the picklist name to the parent from the parent - child - child object.
njdevilsfan Oct 22	EricB- You referenced in your last comment a list of the most popular ideas and that this was #26. Is there a way for us to see this list? I think alot of people would find that very interesting.
Jakester Oct 22	I agree with njdevilsfan - where do we stand now? I know that it was right at 5000 when he made that comment, so we've definitely increased the count a lot since then.
datarzan Oct 23	Eric, surely this must be something you could implement in just minutes if you really wanted to? Clone the current ISPICKVAL function and call it CURRENTPICKVAL. It already contains all the code you need to retrive the current value, just remove all the comparison stuff and return the value retrieved. Please make sure it is included in the next version!!
datarzan Oct 23	I should probably have read all the comments before adding mine, especially Eric's comment of May 30th. But whilst appreciating that perfomance is a complicating issue here I also have to agree with comments made by other that more or less efficient self made workarounds probably also have an adverse affect on overall performance. But the "customers" of my home made system are all IT professionals, and when I tell them that I am sorry, due to Salesforce's funny ways with lots of stuff, making this information available here and that information available there is a no go (what can't be done by point-and-click development won't happen, completely out of scope). Gee are they impressed with Salesforce .... NOT. I sincerely hope that your architectual changes are soon implemented and that this will result i lots of great new stuff, especially this request, all delivered at an exceptional speed.
AlexCRMmanager Oct 25	Probably one of the most frustrating things about Salesforce.com/Force.com for me...
AlexCRMmanager Oct 25	@EricB, I think that is probably one of the best comments I have ever seen from a Salesforce Product Manager on the IdeaExchange so far!!! Thanks for your transparency!!! Hey everybody, lets get this one voted up to the Top 10!!
martin.brown02212008 Oct 29	The thing is although it's only #26, it should be a quick fix and one that would save a lot of pain.
satellitemike Nov 9	How could this not have made into Winter '09? I understand there are hundreds of "important" Ideas that SF must review but seriously. Sorry, seems to me that a low hanging fruit item that over 600 people complained about could have been an easy Big Win!
Jakester Nov 10	I feel your pain, but check out EricB's comments above for some background on this.
stevepmba Nov 11	I find it unbelieveable that this is still hanging around. I have been caught on this on a number of instances and it is causing an issues with the end users not being able to extract key data from the multi-picklist fields they require. It is alright EricB to suggest that we use ISPICKVAL (thanks for the suggestion at least) but this is not possible for us as there are too many instances plus they are constantly changing. Another problem with this solution is that the end users cannot create ISPICKVAL themselves therefore it is an additional load on the adminstrator. PS Christophe "S-Control" solution posted on the 11 Feb does not work for Multi-picklists (as per SF technical team)
anthony_lilja Nov 11	Anyone have an example of this CASE formula that you can implement to update the picklist text field? I can't seem to figure out how to get that workaround implemented. Thanks!
adminisaurusrex Nov 11	I copy/paste all of my picklist values into excel, and then use formulas to create a huge Case function that I can use in another SFDC formula field. Case(custom_field_from_original_object , "pickvalA","pickvalA","pickvalB","pickvalB","pickvalC","pickvalC","ELSE_RESULT") Something like that.
Jakester Nov 11	Stevepmba - this idea is all about picklists, there are other ideas in the system about improving multi-select picklists.

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The ability to use a picklist value in a formula field without ISPICKVAL

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