Saving Multiple Dropdown Labels and Choices.

Question

Hi, 
 I'm new to Appian and apologies if I missed something really obvious. I'm running into an issue attempting to capture selected choices and their respective labels of an a!multipleDropdownField(). 
 I've declared 4 local variables to hold the list of available choice labels, available choices, selected choice labels and selected choices. 
 a!localVariables ( local!arrChoiceLabels : { "Option1" , "Option2" , "Option3" }, local!arrChoiceValues : { 1 , 2 , 3 }, local!arrSelectedLabel : if ( a!isNullOrEmpty ( ri!rec.selected ), {}, split ( ri!rec.selected ,";") ), local!arrSelected : if ( a!isNullOrEmpty ( local!arrSelectedLabel ), {}, wherecontains ( local!arrSelectedLabel , local!arrChoiceLabels ) ), 
 Then I tried to plug them into the multiple dropdown field, a!multipleDropdownField ( choiceLabels : local!arrChoiceLabels , choiceValues : local!arrChoiceValues , label : "Appian Multi Select Dropdown" , labelPosition : "ABOVE" , value : { local!arrSelected }, saveInto : { local!arrSelected , a!save ( local!arrSelectedLabel , index ( local!arrChoiceLabels , local!arrSelected , {}) ), a!save ( ri!rec.selected , tostring ( local!arrSelectedLabel ) ) }, searchDisplay : "AUTO" , validations : {} ), 
 The above implementation results in a list of properly selected/deselected labels in arrSelectedLabel list (which flattens fine into the rules input string) but only the first selected element will show in arrSelected list. The drop down itself will reflect that by only highlighting the first selected choice as well. I've also tried replacing the index function with a!forEach - local!arrChoiceLabels[fv!item] loop with the same results. Any ideas where I went wrong? 
 Thank you!

osanchea · Accepted Answer

Hello. I made some changes to the code. Please refer the code below and let me know if you have any questions. a!localVariables(
 local!arrChoiceLabels: {"Option1", "Option2", "Option3"},
 local!arrChoiceValues: {1, 2, 3},
 local!arrSelectedLabel: if(
 a!isNullOrEmpty(ri!rec),
 {},
 split(ri!rec,";")
 ),
 local!arrSelected: if(
 a!isNullOrEmpty(local!arrSelectedLabel),
 {},
 wherecontains(local!arrSelectedLabel,local!arrChoiceLabels)
 ),
 {
 a!multipleDropdownField(
 choiceLabels: local!arrChoiceLabels,
 choiceValues: local!arrChoiceValues,
 label: "Appian Multi Select Dropdown",
 labelPosition: "ABOVE",
 value: {local!arrSelected},
 saveInto: {
 local!arrSelected,
 a!save(
 local!arrSelectedLabel,
 index(local!arrChoiceLabels, save!value, {})
 ),
 a!save(
 ri!rec,
 joinarray(local!arrSelectedLabel, ";")
 )
 },
 searchDisplay: "AUTO",
 validations: {}
 )
 }
)

Mike Schmitt · Answer

Not to throw a monkeywrench into your works but I often recommend against saving multiple values into a single field (i presume "ri!rec" is singular and not an array). The reasoning there is because you end up needing to store the array values "flattened", and to ensure that when they're needed again, that the "unflattening" required is understood (this is tricky because sometimes time and dev teams will have passed). 
 But if you HAVE to do so, there's a pre-packaged parsing solution that I recommend, called JSON. If you pass an array through a!toJSON, it'll return a flattened string pre-parsed into the JSON format and will be understandable in the future by anywhere that understands JSON. Later you can take that value and pass it back through a!fromJSON and it'll be converted back into an array for you. This saves the hassle and confusion surrounding whether you should use tostring() or joinarray(), and using "split()" later on a separator (and worrying whether the data was accidentally stored with spaces between the items or not).

Saving Multiple Dropdown Labels and Choices.

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