SharePoint Choice field with "Allow 'Fill-in' choices:". Should the Fill-in choice be saved inside the Choice field options?

Question

We have a SharePoint field named "options" of type Choice and which allow Fill-in, as follow:

Now if we create a new list item and we type-in a new choice (for example "MY NEW CHOICE"), as follow:-

and we save the new list item, then the Choices inside the field definition will not get modified (will not contain the new choice). but when we create or edit a list item >> the Choice field will show the new fill-in choice, as follow:-

so is this normal? or my tenant has an issue, since the new fill-in choice will not get updated inside the field's definition choices (which will only contain 3 choices; A,B & C without the fill-in choice "MY NEW CHOICE"), as follow:-

?

Answer 1

Hi @john john ,

With "Allow 'Fill-in' choices" function enabled you can have users fill in their own choices if their item does not appear in the list. So it is not a issue, "MY NEW CHOICE" will not be saved inside the Choice field options and this behavior is by design. Per my test, like you said we can reuse this new choice field. It seems like this new choice field is added to the New item form instead of the Choice field options(in column settings).

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Answer 2

Hi,

I cannot find an answer anywhere. However, this post seems to me that someone described the issue that I have. I have a form (list) on SPO. I've created a choice field with Yes/No and let users put their explanation as fill in choices if their answer is yes.

when I click on new entry, the choice field shows Yes, No and whatever fill in options was put in previously. I don't want this to be listed. I only want yes and no. This was great in SharePoint 2013 but SPO is not doing what I want it to do.

Any solutions?

Thanks

Answer 3

Hi!

We are facing exactly the same issue.

Has anyone found a way to delete these additional choices that should not be there (i.e. "MY NEW CHOICE" above)? As a temporary workaround, this would already help. Otherwise, the drop-down menu gets cluttered up to the point of not being usable anymore.

To answer your question above, john john, no, I do not think this is the normal behaviour for two reasons: first, when we used a previous version of SharePoint, this did not happen. Second, it still does not happen for some of us with the new version. But unfortunately we can't find out where the source of the problem lies.

Kind regards

Answer 4

I have this exact same issue as well. Users enter misspelled options and there is no way I can find to remove or edit these added choices since they are not appended to the Choice field.