Ian Jamieson

Global picklists are a feature in Salesforce that allows you to create and manage picklist values that can be shared across multiple fields and objects. A picklist is a field that lets users select from a predefined list of values, such as countries, currencies, or product categories. Global picklists help you maintain consistent and standardized data across your organization, reduce duplication and errors, and simplify the configuration and maintenance of your picklist fields.

To use global picklists in Salesforce, you need to create a global picklist value set, which is a collection of values that can be used by one or more picklist fields. You can create a new global picklist value set from scratch, or you can promote an existing picklist field to a global value set. Once you have a global value set, you can assign it to any custom picklist field on any standard or custom object. You can also edit, delete, or deactivate the values in the global value set at any time, and the changes will be reflected in all the fields that use it.

Here are the steps to create and use global picklists in Salesforce:

1. Create a brand new global picklist value set

• In Setup, navigate to Picklist Value Set.
• Click New.
• Name your picklist value set and optionally add a description.
• Choose whether you want to restrict the picklist values to only those defined in the value set, or allow users to add their own values when creating or editing records.
• Click Save.
• Add the values that you want to include in your global picklist value set. You can enter them manually, or import them from a CSV file. You can also reorder, rename, or deactivate the values as needed.
• Click Save.

1. Promote an existing picklist field to a global value set

• In Setup, navigate to Object Manager and select the object that contains the picklist field that you want to promote.
• Click Fields & Relationships and select the picklist field that you want to promote.
• Click Promote to Global Value Set.
• Review the information and click Promote.

1. Assign a global value set to a custom picklist field

• In Setup, navigate to Object Manager and select the object that contains the custom picklist field that you want to assign a global value set to.
• Click Fields & Relationships and select the custom picklist field that you want to assign a global value set to.
• Click Edit.
• Under Value Set Definition, select Use global value set and choose the global value set that you want to use from the drop-down list.
• Click Save.

Global picklists are a powerful way to ensure data quality and consistency across your Salesforce org. By using global picklists, you can save time and effort in creating and managing your picklist fields, and avoid data discrepancies and errors.

To learn more about global picklists, you can refer to the official Salesforce documentation here: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.customize_picklists_global.htm&type=5