Select

The Select data type allows you to set the possible options for a cell, column, or range of cells.

Select data types act like drop-down lists and are useful when you frequently repeat a similar alphanumeric entry or for when you wish to restrict your users to a set of select options.

For example, if you were using Spreadsheet.com for bug tracking, you might frequently repeat the priority options High, Medium, and Low. You might even wish to restrict requests to those options so that no one can make up an option for a bug like "Medium-Low," or write "This is the most important bug in the world, you must fix it now." Select data types also allow you to set background colors for each select option, making them highly customizable and unique from other data types.

Select.png

Configuration Options

Strict

Like all other data types (except Automatic), you can enable Strict cells or columns for the Select data type. Setting cells as Strict will ensure that cells contain only the options you've chosen, and no other data. 

When converting data to Select, choosing Strict will empty any cells containing data that does not match your select options. If needed, you can revert changes by clicking Undo in the top left toolbar or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Z (CMD + Z for Mac users).

Source

From the Source field, you can select the source of your select options. List of options allows you to manually input the select options within the dialog. Range of cells allows you to designate the select options as the values contained in a contiguous range of cells. Named range allows you to designate the select options as the values contained in a defined named range.

Options

The Options field is where you can manage available select options. Click on the name of a select option to rename it, or click the paintbrush icon to the right of the option to change its color. Delete an option by clicking the x icon to the right of its name, or click + New option at the bottom of the list to define a new Select option.

You can also sort your options by clicking the Sort button in the options list to sort either alphabetically or numerically, depending on your option names. Or you can rearrange the sort manually, by dragging and dropping options with the drag handles mceclip0.png to the left of each option.

Editing the name of the option will change the data in cells currently assigned that option. For instance, changing the name of the option "High" in the animation above to "Urgent" would change all cells that are currently marked as "High" to "Urgent" instead.

How to Use Select Options

Once you've configured the Select data type and defined the options, you can either type an option into a cell or choose from the option drop-down list.

Select-Choose-option.png

To remove a selected option from a cell, simply delete or click on the option in the cell and select the x icon to the right of the option name.

If you have Owner or Manager permissions, you can also define new options directly from within a Select cell. Type in a currently non-existent option and click + Add [name] option from the dropdown. The text in that cell will be converted into a new option that can be chosen in any of the other Select cells.

Select-Add-new-option.png

With the Select data type, you can only select one option. To learn about enabling multiple select options at once, see our article on the Multiselect data type.

Conversion Behavior

If you are converting existing data to a Select data type, existing cell entries will appear as separate options in your select list. For example, if you are converting a Text column with the entries "High", "Medium", and "Low" to a Select column, the converted column will have the Select options "High", "Medium", and "Low".

You can edit these options as you would edit options in a newly created Select column, described above.

See our article on the Multiselect data type to learn how to enable multiple select options within the same cell. Or, read on to learn more about the rest of Spreadsheet.com's Data Types.