Skip to main content
A picklist is the set of approved values a dropdown can offer. Two independent decisions shape every one: what structure it has, and where the options come from. This page is the decision guide; the picklists reference covers the mechanics of each type.

​
1. Simple

One flat list, no dependency on anything else. A Medium picklist with seven options (paid_social, cpc, email, display, and so on) shows every marketer, on every campaign, the same seven. How it is built: in the grid editor, as a single column of options. See static picklists.

​
2. Linear cascade

A chain where each list narrows the next: one parent, one child, a single path from general to specific. This is the workhorse of paid-media taxonomy: Channel narrows Source, Source narrows Placement. Pick paid-social, and Source offers only linkedin, meta, and reddit; pick linkedin, and Placement offers only the four options valid under it. Three behaviors make the cascade safe to fill:
  • A child dropdown stays locked until its parent is answered, so there is no wrong fill order.
  • Changing an upstream answer clears the downstream ones rather than leaving a stale value.
  • The same value can live under two parents. feed under meta and feed under reddit are separate options, so you never need workarounds like meta-feed.
How it is built: the same grid editor as a simple picklist, with multiple levels. Each level is a column, and the column to its left sets the parent. See hierarchical picklists and the cascading dropdowns recipe.

​
3. Branching cascade

One parent narrows several children at once. The children are siblings, not a chain: each depends on the same upstream answer, and none affects the others. A field event and a demand-gen program have different objectives, assets, and owners, so one Campaign type answer reconfigures the whole section: switch it from field-event to demand-gen and Objective, Asset type, and Budget owner all reload together. Choosing an asset type does nothing to Objective; only the shared parent matters. How it is built: branching works end to end for people filling in forms, but the grid editor currently builds one chain at a time, so a branching structure is set up by governance-model import or the API today. Your Terminus contact can do this with you.

​
4. Conditional

Instead of narrowing one list, conditional swaps the list entirely. You set a default picklist plus ordered rules, each saying “when these conditions hold, use this other picklist”; the first matching rule wins. Use it when a situation needs a genuinely different vocabulary, not just fewer options. EMEA display inventory is not a subset of the global placements list; it is its own approved set. How it is built: not in the picklist editor at all. Conditional is a set of rules attached to a dropdown field, and the lists those rules point at are usually plain simple picklists you already have.

​
Static or automatic: the source axis

Everything above is shape. Where the options come from is an independent choice: a picklist is static (you maintain the options) or automatic (Terminus Hub derives them). An automatic picklist points at a taxonomy you already maintain, say Campaigns, and at one field inside it. Whatever values that field holds across the taxonomy’s approved records become the options. A Campaign dropdown therefore offers exactly the campaigns that already exist: approve a record and it appears in the dropdown, retire one and it leaves. People pick a real campaign instead of retyping an ID from a spreadsheet, and there is nothing to keep in sync by hand. Two properties worth knowing:
  • It cascades too. Define levels against the source taxonomy and the dropdowns narrow exactly like a linear cascade, with no level maintained by hand: pick emea and Campaign shows only approved EMEA campaigns.
  • Readable labels, clean values. Records carry both a human name and a machine-safe code, so the dropdown can show EMEA Summit 2026 while the governed value stays emea-summit-2026.
How it is built: in the picklist editor, but there is no grid to fill in. You choose the source taxonomy and the levels, and the options follow. See automated picklists and the automated picklist recipe.

​
Which structure do I need?

Two questions per field. Start at the top, where most fields belong, and move down only when the row above cannot express what you need. You will end up using several of them. A mature taxonomy runs static simple lists for Medium and Region, a static cascade for Channel to Source to Placement, automatic for Campaign, conditional where a market has its own inventory, and branching only where one decision reshapes the form. Start simple, and promote a field the moment you catch the first invalid combination in reporting.

​
Filtering a shared picklist

One canonical picklist can be reused everywhere and narrowed at each point of use. That is filtering, not structure: the list stays single, and what changes is which slice applies. There are two reasons to filter, and they are worth keeping apart.
  • Taxonomy filtering is structural. A display taxonomy and a social taxonomy can draw on the same Channel picklist, each narrowed to the values that belong in that kind of campaign. The filter changes when the taxonomy changes. See the filter options per taxonomy recipe.
  • Workspace filtering is operational. Same mechanism, different motive: scoping a team to the values it may use. A local team’s workspace shows only fr and de on the Region picklist while the global team sees all of it. Nothing about the taxonomy changed; access did.
And one convenience that falls out of filtering: when narrowing leaves exactly one legal value, it is selected automatically. That is what makes an inverted taxonomy pleasant to fill: choose the city, and country and region fill themselves in.

​
Vocabulary note

The reference section names picklists by how they are stored: static (simple or cascading, hand-authored), hierarchical (a static picklist linked to a parent, which is how cascades are built), and automated (the automatic source). Structure and source are the two decisions; those pages are the mechanics.