Picklist scoping and syncing between collections

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1

Hey there,
Following up on the discussion in this thread:

Using Pick Lists in Other Collections

I am curious to know – is there a way to automate the syncing of picklist values between collections? There are some picklists I want to be different between collections. For those, I will name them by-collection and I don’t care whether they’re accessible or editable between collections, because they’re collection-specific. But for the most part, I want most of my picklists to remain identical between collections (i.e. if a picklist has the same name and applies to the same field, if I update it in one collection, I want the changes made to affect all collections with that picklist on that field). Is there a way to do this currently? Or must I manually update other collections when a picklist change is made in a particular collection?

Also, what is the expected behavior for picklists in tables + fields shared between collections within a division and discipline, such as CollectingEvent or Accession? I would expect that they would update for all collections if a value is added in one, but I don’t think that’s what I’m observing.

2

We also have some picklists that I would want to use across ‘all’ and not have to manually add to multiple collections. :slight_smile:

I do know there is funny behaviours with editing existing picklist values vs. their labels and the way those are displayed in various forms.

3

Hi @nfshoobs,

Currently, there is no way to share pick lists between collections. If this is a feature you would like to see implemented, feel free to start a discussion in the New Feature Request category here on Discourse or on Github!

It is reasonable to expect that records scoped to a higher level would update the pick list when created in any collection. I also found that records scoped to Institution update picklists from a different collection, while those at the Discipline level do not. I wrote up a bug report for you on GitHub: Records scoped to Discipline do not update table-based pick lists in different collections · Issue #7599 · specify/specify7 · GitHub. Let me know if there is anything you would like me to change about the report!

4

Hi @nfshoobs

I came across this post while looking into entire-table pick lists today and have a couple things to add.

  1. Just a little added context: the behavior you reported makes sense to me since, although Schema Config is scoped to Discipline, crucially, pick list values are scoped to the current collection. This is what allows collections to have unique pick lists for the same field, like prepType and gear, for example.

  2. As of v7.12.0, you can unselect the “Scope “Entire Table” Picklists” checkbox in Collection Preferences to allow entire-table-type pick lists to include every record from the selected table database-wide as pick list items no matter what collection/discipline it is in. This preference applies to entire table and field from table pick lists, with some exceptions that are being worked through (#7589); namely, the preference doesn’t apply to the Prep Type pick list.

  3. I am curious if the issue written on your behalf, Issue #7599, could be considered resolved if that current Collection Preference was changed to be an option for each entire-table-type pick list rather than applying to all of them. I’ve just requested this change, #8397, and would be happy to note that it will resolve your issue also if you agree.