Custom Field Value Field usability

[#1]

When entering options for a custom data field drop down list, there is a secondary field called 'Value' and the help text states 'In most cases the value field should be the same as the label'. We have a list of about 1600 entries in a custom data field which contains a customer name and number. It is currently sorted by name but some of our employees need to reference it by number which is not possible since it is formatted as name + number (e.g. ABC Company 00001). Since search is not possible within a custom field, we can put ABC Company 00001 in the label field and 00001 ABC Company in the value field to give us that capability, but there is NO WAY to reference the value field. If in a drop down list we could reference either the label field or the value field that would solve our problem. Thanks

[#2]

Glad to see this out here. I had requested a similar enhancement back in 2017 on the old help desk site, but it never received any traction.

In case someone from WF is looking at this one, the following are the comments from the enhancement request (#18253295 - Modify the Configuration for Drop-Down Fields so the "Value" portion could be used for an Index) that I submitted on 01/13/17:

A lot of times when we create drop down fields, the "label" portion is text, something meaningful to users. However, we want to be able to assign and index to each value in the drop down to easily sort them in a "logical" order.

It would be nice it the "value" portion of the drop-down could be used to assign a unique numerical value so that you could have the option on reports/views that include the field to sort the report either based on the assigned "value" or the "label".

We spend a lot of time creating calculated custom fields whose sole purpose is to provide a sort order for a drop-down field. It just seems like an inefficient use of resources. Not to mention the maintenance involved to update the custom sort field, if new drop-down options were added to the field.