SharePoint Conditional Formula for Multiple Choice column

Question

I've had a lot of success showing and hiding columns using conditional formulas that use single choice columns e.g. =[$ColumnB]=='ValueA'.

However, I have not found a way to show or hide a column based on the selections in a multiple choice checkbox column. I'm trying to find a formula that says "Show Column A if Choice A is selected in Column B" regardless of any other choices made.

The Microsoft Documentation Show or hide columns in a list or library form only has examples for single choice columns, but multiple choice columns are not mentioned in the list of unsupported column types. Only multiple selection person or group columns are mentioned as being unsupported.

Does anyone know how to write such a formula?

Answer 1

Dear CCentofanti,

Thanks for your query in this community.

Unfortunately, I am afraid you might won’t be able to achieve what you want with the column conditional formula at this time.

According to my test results, when you allow the multiple values on the choice column, the conditional formula will become unusable. Based on my understanding, this issue could be cause when you enable multiple values for this column, the data is no longer stored as a string format. Instead, on a programming level, it might use List or Dict to store and process the data. In this way, when you use the formula:

=if([$Choices]=='Choice 1','true', 'false')

It will compare the List with a string, which obviously will return error every time. Hence, the formula will stop functioning as expected.

The only suggestion/workaround I could provide is customizing the form with the PowerApps. In the PowerApps, you could setup a toggle and switch the toggle to show/hide those column fields.

Set conditional formatting via PowerApps with SharePoint List form

 

However, I agree with you that in the article: Show or hide columns in a list or library form, it mentioned this part in the Choice column section.

"The following formula checks if the choice column [$Category] has a value Product Management"

This might mislead some users to think the multiple values Choice column is supported.

In this kind of situation, I would suggest you submit your feedback in the SharePoint UserVoice. In this way, your idea will be directly reviewed by the related team, and idea with higher votes might eventually been released as new feature in the future updates.

Your understanding is highly appreciated.

Regards,

Alex Chen