Automating the Upload of Picklists

We talked recently about uploading select list values to be used in a form on your website to make the experience easier for visitors. There is an even more powerful technique that can be used to automatically update picklists that are dynamically sourced in another application.

In a similar manner to how we manually updated the picklists, we can use the upload wizard to automatically update the picklists. If, for example, the list of industries you are interested in having in your picklist is defined in a remote system that you want the list in Eloqua to automatically reflect, you can set that up to re-synchronize on a nightly basis.

One of the more common remote sources that is dynamic is a custom report in your CRM system. This creates a .csv export that is current as of the moment that it is called, and can thus be used as a dynamic source. Typical uses might be a list of products, industries, or regions that is maintained in the CRM system.

You can also use API calls to your CRM system in many cases to pull the information you require. In either case, go to Setup->Integration->Inbound and create a new data source. Be sure to check the box for "Can be scheduled for automatic execution", as this is what we'll be doing.

Following the same technique as we did with the manual upload from a .csv file, we’ll pick a source that is dynamic - our recently created source. The upload wizard will pull enough of the report to determine the columns available, which can then be used for mapping into the relevant fields in the select list. You'll likely want to choose the option to delete existing values, or to match on your option value field.

On the last step of the wizard, in the "After Uploading" section, choose that you would like to schedule automatic imports based on these settings. Select the schedule you would like the update to run on. Typically this will be weekly or daily. When the scheduled time arrives, the list will be re-uploaded with the most current version.

That is all that is needed, now your select list will be automatically populated with data from your remote source on a daily basis without you having to do anything.

Uploading Select Lists to Save Typing

In putting together landing pages, you’ll often want to use drop-down select lists to allow your web visitors to choose from a number of options. If you have a quick list with just a few options, it’s easy to enter the values manually, but if you are dealing with a list that is longer than 5 or 10 options, it can be much easier to upload the lists.

To edit or create a select list for your form, choose the Manage Select Lists option from the forms menu, and either edit an existing select list or create a new one. The select list editor allows you to edit or create the individual items in a list one by one. Remember that the Option field represents the data that is submitted when the visitor submits the form, and the Value field represents what is displayed in the select list to the visitor.

To upload a larger list of values, such as options for the visitor’s industry or product line of interest, starting from an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet should have two columns, one for the data value, and one for the name that is displayed. Save your list in a .csv format so that it can be uploaded.

In the select list management interface, choose Upload Values. From here the familiar upload wizard will walk you through uploading your data file. Be sure to map the columns in your spreadsheet to the correct columns in the select list.

Within the upload wizard, you can also select whether you would like to delete all existing values, or have your new values added to the values that are already there.

The select list management interface give you a quick preview of your select list so you can ensure that it is exactly how you wanted it. Remember that you may want a blank or default entry at the start of the list in order to correctly handle the situation where a web visitor does not select a value for that field.


With this completed, your select list is ready to be used in your form. When you choose a field of type “Single Select List” or “Multiple Select List”, you will be given an option to choose your recently created select list. When you create a landing page layout for your form, that select list will appear.