You can indeed make one dropdown list dependent on the user’s choice in another dropdown list. The dependent list is called a conditional dropdown list.
This article provides a quick overview of the most common and recommended method for creating conditional dropdown lists. For detailed instructions and tutorials you can follow, see these QuickBase online help topics:
QuickBase lets you define conditional behavior for certain fields using a simple field property. However, QuickBase also requires that do some preliminary setup up to create your tables and relationships correctly before you can use this feature.
To illustrate, let’s look at an example. Say you want to create an application for car rental reservations; on the reservation form, you want the user to first choose among a list of car makes (Ford, Chrysler, Mercury, Chevrolet, etc.). Once the make has been selected, the models drop down list would display only the models (Mustang, Taurus, Escape, Explorer, etc.) associated with the selection.
1. The first step is to imagine what you want your form to look like. For the example we’ve described above, we’ve come up with this simple form:
To accomplish this, you’d create three tables, as follows.
|
Table |
Field |
|
Makes |
Make |
|
Models |
Model |
|
Reservations |
Last name First name |
2. Next, you need to create three different table relationships.
First, create a one-to-many relationship between the Makes and Models tables:
Next, create two more relationships:
Makes - > Reservations
Models - > Reservations
When you've created these relationships, you'll have the basis of your form (you can add section titles if you wish.)
3. Enter your Makes and Models.
4. Set conditional properties for your conditional field.
Since you want the Model dropdown options to depend on a selection in the Makes field when you enter Reservations, your conditional field will be the Reservations: Related Models field.
Open the field properties of the Reservations > Related Models field.
5. In the Reference Field Options section, click Conditional Behavior: Filter choices by selecting another field first.
When you make this selection, QuickBase asks you to complete a statement allowing you to define the conditional behavior. You complete this statement to tell QuickBase:
After the user has selected a Make on the Reservations form (Reservations: Related Make), show only those models whose related make (Models: Related Make) matches the Makes selection on the reservations table.
6. In the first dropdown, select Reservations: Related Make. In the second dropdown, select Models: Related Make.
When you save these settings, go to your Reservations form and enter a reservation. When you select Make, you should see that the Models list displays only those models that belong to the selected make.