How to change dropdown list options

help_outline Heads up! This is a guide for admins. If you're not an admin yet, ask your Beacon admin to promote you so you can start managing fields.

Dropdown lists are versatile, and ensure cleaner data compared to a free text field for when there's a limited range of possible values in a field. But that doesn't mean they won't need to change sometimes!

help_outline You'll need to be an admin to change dropdown list options

link Summary

To add a new dropdown option, you need to:

1. Create the new option
2. Update all of the records with the old option to use the new one
3. Remove the old option

link Step by step guide

Firstly, add the new dropdown option:

1. Open a record where the dropdown list is
2. Enter customisation mode by clicking the cog in the top right
3. Click the field to edit
4. Type your new option in the 'Add dropdown options' field and hit enter ↲ on your keyboard
5. Click 'Save'

Next, update all relevant records to the new option:

6. Go to the list view of the applicable records
7. Filter for those records that have the old option
8. Select them all, click the action menu (the three dots) and click 'Update records'
9. Choose your dropdown field, and select the new option. If your dropdown list allows mutiple options to be selected, choose 'Add to existing values' as the merge option.
10. Click 'Update'

Lastly, you can remove the old option:

11. Go back to one of the records, enter customisation mode, and click on the dropdown field
12. Click the 'x' of the old option to remove it
13. Click 'Save'

check_circle_outline Dropdown updated!