Hi all, I have following use case. A user should be able to search a

Have you thought about some kind of wizard where the user searches for software and puts it in a "shopping cart". This could be a OOTB read-only grid. A button could allow to add more software.

it seems to me that this may be doable using paging grids for the initial search/selection and queries based on the selected indexes to populate the subsequent dropdown. But I'm not entirely clear as to what you mean by "select a certain amount", or what exactly the different versions would imply, so forgive me if it's not quite that simple.

Thanks for the suggestion! I think this should be an acceptable solution. I hope my end users think the same way ;-)

What I meant is that a user should be able to select multiple software from a list. The user should then be able to select certain versions based on the selected software.
The search solution now provides a list with all possible combinations of Software / Version (e.g. Windows XP / Windows 7). The user can then continue to search and add them to the basket.
I also had to add another step where the user can choose whether he wants the software to be installed or removed and can enter the id of the computer where this should happen.

This looks like IT Service Management. Do you know the ITIL model?

I know what it's about... Why?

Would a one-at-a-time approach be appropriate here? In the solution I'm thinking of (which may still be off-base for your use case, but just for example), I would allow selection of one specific software from the grid, and when the user clicks Next, the same form would be shown again but with a hidden section shown containing further information on the selected item and the dropdown with version(s); then when the user selects one and continues, perhaps have the same page load yet again but with a read-only grid at the top showing the software and version(s) selected by the user so-far, such that they can add an arbitrary number and that grid grows as they add things. You can enable an additional button called "finished" when they've added one or more softwares, which will take them onward.

Hm... from my perspective what you are doing is a request where a certain asset (Software) will be assigned to a user. This is for the "install" case. In case a user wants to uninstall some software he can only choose from certain assets that are already assigned to him. How mature are your functional processes regarding request, asset and configuration management?

Sorry, but this would be revealing a little too many details about my company. I am happy to discuss this further if we get a chance to meet outside Appian forum.

:-) I'm going to contact you via email.