The Connected Systems Filtered Dropdown for SharePoint 2010 is a custom field control add the your SharePoint Farm to allow every site collection to utilise the benefits of filtering list contentvia a lookup field control.
Using the Filtered Dropdown Field Control
Once installed, the initial the Parent Filtered Column needs to added to your list as the first lookup field. Given this solution is a globally deployed field control, the configuration of this control occurs when a column is added to a list.
Located the list you would like to add the Filtered Dropdown Field Control to. On the List tab, under Manage Views, select Create Column. The following modal dialog box will appear.
Enter the field name of the first or parent filter you would like to use to filter the second lookup. For example, if you wanted to filter the Council name based on the Suburb filter, Suburb would be the first Filtered Dropdown to add.
The site dropdown allow another site value to be looked up. Once the site is selected, you’ll notice the Select list dropdown will refresh with a new set of lists from the site selected. Select the list you wish to retrieve the data from to populate the current field, in our example, this is the Suburb list.
Select the column name; this will determine the field type as the new field will be based on this content. In our example, this is the Suburb Name.
Given this field is the parent Filtered Dropdown field that all subsequent field will reference, the remaining two fields are left blank. This is the same as creating a Lookup field type to another list.
Please Note – the Parent field MUST be ordered before the child Filtered Dropdown as there is a reliance on the Parent field being set before the child fields are active.
Creating Filtered Dropdowns using the Parent Filter
Once the Parent filter is configure, we are now able to use this to filter all remaining fields we would like to look up and use.
On the List tab, under Manage Views, select Create Column. The following modal dialog box will appear.
Enter the field name of the lookup value you would like to return, in our example this is Council.
Select the site dropdown and select the site your source list resides.
Select the list that the Filtered Dropdown will use to filter the values, the Select Column the Filter Column and Parent Column. In our example, if you wanted to filter the Council name based on the Suburb filter, Suburb is the List name, Council is the return value or Select Column, Filter column is the column in the Suburb list we will be using to filter and the Parent Column is the Suburb column added from the previous section.
Once added to the list, select “add new item” to test.
In our example, if a Suburb is selected that is in two or more Councils, those Councils will be filtered based on Suburb selection.