Customizing Picklists

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to create and manage picklists used with succession.

Picklist Center Overview

In SAP SuccessFactors, the dropdown menus are often configured in picklists. Picklists can also have a parent-child relationship, in which options in the child picklist are associated with options in the parent picklist. These are known as cascading picklists.

The latest Picklist Center standardizes the way picklists are managed in the system. All picklists in the suite are managed from a unified, easy-to-use Picklist Center tool. This reduces the risk of errors and potential for data corruption and allows administrators to maintain picklists effectively and easily for any or all of the SAP SuccessFactors suite.

Picklists allow end users to easily select an option from a pre-defined list of choices. The following list describes picklists and their functionalities:

Picklists are fields in a dropdown list within SAP SuccessFactors modules.
You can edit picklists through Admin Center within Picklist Center.
With picklists, you can create consistent content for reporting and talent searching.
With picklists, you can handle multiple languages.

Note

Picklist Management and Picklist Mappings Set Up permission is a pre-requisite for the Picklist Center. You should be able to use Picklist Center for managing all picklists.

Picklist Permissions

To use the Picklist Center, be sure to grant the Picklist Management and Picklists Mappings Set Up permission within Manage Permission Roles.

A screenshot showing a selected checkbox next to Picklist Management and Picklist Mappings Set Up under Manage System Properties

How to Locate the Picklist Center

To locate the Picklist Center, use action search to navigate to Picklist Center.

The Picklist Center utilizes the Metadata Framework as a prerequisite.

When you have located Picklist Center, all picklists will be listed in alphabetical order. To find a specific picklist, you can enter all or part of the name in the search box. To create a new picklist, use the plus icon (+) next to the search box.

A screenshot showing Picklist Center, including a seach box and a + icon at the top

Create Picklists Using Picklist Center

To manually create a picklist in Admin Center, follow the procedure below:

Steps

Use action search to navigate to the Picklist Center.

Choose the plus icon (+) and enter the code and pertinent values for the picklist. The available fields are defined in the table below.

Screenshot of the Create a New Picklist form with fields to input values, including code

Data may consist of the following fields:

Field	Description
Code	Unique business key that is used to identify the picklist. (If you are familiar with legacy picklists, the code is the equivalent of the picklist ID).
Parent Picklist	A picklist can have a parent picklist. For example, if only certain states can be chosen when a specific country is selected, the Country picklist is the parent of the State picklist. When legacy picklists are migrated to MDF picklists, an option ID is generated for existing MDF picklist values. For legacy picklist options that have been migrated, the existing option ID is stored in the mapping table. After the migration, if you create a picklist from the Picklist Center, an option ID is generated for all records. The present effective dated record is used; other effective dated entries for the parent picklist are not considered.
Display Order	The order in which the picklist values are listed in the picklist dropdown, for example, alphabetically or numerically
Name	Unique name of the picklist. For example, if the picklist is for the type of address (home, mailing, business, billing, and so on), you could name the picklist Address Type.
Status	Specifies whether the picklist is active or inactive, that is, whether it is available for use
External Code	MDF external code. A unique business key that is used to identify the picklist value, for example, state_Alabama.
Non-unique External Code	Legacy external code. Unlike the MDF external code, it can be blank or duplicated.
Parent Picklist Value	For example, if the external code is state_Alabama, the parent picklist value is United States. If the value is state_Alberta, the parent picklist value is Canada.
Label	For example, if the external code is state_Alabama, the label is Alabama.
Status	Specifies whether the picklist value is active or inactive, that is, whether it is available for use.
Minval	Use -1 unless working org chart icons.

Other actions may also be performed in this section like deleting a picklist using the trash icon, sorting the list displayed, filtering for a specific picklist, or defining the column properties.

A screenshot showing icons to filter, delete, copy to clipboard, sort, and so on

You may also edit the picklist values by choosing the code and external code to make modifications:

A screenshot shows Edit as selected and a list of Picklist Values, including data under External Code and Label, among other columns.

Picklists Import Through Picklist Center

Use the picklist import or export to feed data from or to external systems. For example, you import picklists for the initial mass creation of values.

Importing picklists through Picklist Center is a two-step process. First, you import your picklists (IDs, effective date, and so on). Secondly, you import your picklist values. These are two separate .CSV files.

Use Action Search to navigate to Import and Export Data.
Select the action to perform: Import Data.
Select the CSV File tab.
For the Select Generic Object field, choose Picklist or Picklist-Values.
Select Choose File and browse to your file location to select the file.
Select Unicode (UTF-8) for File Encoding.
Select Incremental Load for Purge Type.
Select Yes to remove redundant effective-dated records from the Suppress Redundant Date-Effective Records list.
Select Business Key for Key Preference.
Use Locale Format should be No.
Choose User ID or Assignment ID as the Identity type. Make sure you use the same Identity Type for both importing and exporting picklists.
Date Format: MM/DD/YYYY
Select Validate if you wish to validate the file.
Choose Import to import the data.

A screenshot showing a dropdown menu next to Select Generic Object, including these options: Picklist, Picklist-Values, and PicklistMergeConflictDecisions

Next, to import the picklist values, repeat the steps for importing picklists except choose Picklist-Values for the generic object.

When the two jobs are complete, you receive an e-mail with any errors that occurred during the import. If any errors occurred, you can check the complete report (and download the .CSV file with notes of errors) under Scheduled Job Manager.

Note

When importing a legacy picklist, be sure to provide a value for the external code. If you leave it blank, the import fails.

Troubleshooting Icons Not Appearing in the SOC when the Picklist Center Used

In the Succession Org Chart configuration, the minValue from the picklist is used to configure the icons.

When utilizing the minValue, be sure to provide a min value for the picklists that the Succession Org Chart uses:

Go to Admin Center→Picklist Center.
Select the desired picklist.
Select the picklist value to edit.
Insert the Min value for all values in the picklist, which should match what is configured in the Succession Org Chart XML.

After selecting the value, configure the Min value:

A screenshot showing a numeric value in the Min value field

After correcting the Min value of the picklist options, the icons should start appearing in the Succession Org Chart.

Note

You need an implementation consultant or Customer Success to provide the values from the Succession Org Chart XML because customers do not have access to this area. In addition, if you change the Min values in this section, you will likely break the connection to your Succession Org Chart icons.

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