In the Salesforce Spring ’23 release, we have some welcome picklist updates. Let’s go through each one...
Clean Up Inactive Picklist Values
For custom single value picklists, you can now bulk update predefined values and remove unused picklist options. Previously you would have needed to delete inactive values one at a time. This was a beta feature that is now generally available.
The bulk update is available for custom single value picklists with pre-defined values. This means that picklists that are standard, multi-select or using global value sets cannot take advantage of this feature.
Inactive, unused values will be deleted. If there is an inactive value that is still referenced in a record, this will not be deleted.
From the Object Manager, choose the Object and Fields & Relationships. Locate your picklist field. From the Inactive Values section of the picklist field, click Delete Unused Values. This will run a job which will analyse which values are inactive and not referenced in records and delete them. You will receive an email when the job is complete. A record of the change is added to the Setup Audit Trail.
Bulk Manage Picklist Values
Another feature going from beta to generally available, is the ability to bulk manage your picklist values. Using this feature, you can delete, replace, deactivate or activate multiple picklist values
This is available for custom picklists with pre-defined values (not from a global value set)
In Setup, locate the picklist field from the Object Manager. In the Values and Inactive Values sections, you’ll see a checkbox next to each of your picklist values. Use the checkbox to select the values you wish to change. Then select one of the new buttons that you can see: Delete Selected, Deactivate Selected, Replace Selected, or Activate Selected.
Limit the Number of Inactive Picklist Values
This change is announced in Spring ’23 and enforced in Summer ’23. With this update, the ability to have an unlimited number of inactive picklist values is removed. Your org will be limited to 4000 inactive picklist values in order to improve your org’s health and performance.
How? From Summer ’23 the option to Remove upper bound on inactive picklist values will be removed from the Picklist Settings page in Setup. Then you can’t remove the upper bound on inactive picklist values, and the maximum number of inactive picklist values will be 4,000.
Capture Inclusive Data with Gender Identity and Pronouns Fields
Two new standard picklist fields will be available on the Lead, Contact and Person Account objects. These are the Pronouns and Gender Identity fields. These will be available for you to add to your page layouts.
You can choose to use the existing picklist values or add your own picklist values.
If you are gathering personal data, please ensure you are aware of any privacy implications of collecting and storing this information.
Why not take a look at our Salesforce Spring 2023 overview release blog.