When creating a new single-select or multi-select field in the new record type, users cannot conveniently add options while the field is still unlocked, forcing extra clicks into edit mode. More importantly, newly added options can appear in an unexpected order in the UI, and reordering them is jumpy and difficult, which wastes time and makes option lists harder to manage.
Steps to Reproduce
Open the new record type editor.
Add a new single-select or multi-select field.
Enter a field title.
Add several options in sequence (for example: 1, 2, 3, A, B, C).
Observe how the options are displayed in the list and attempt to reorder them.
Continue dragging/reordering options to see whether the list updates smoothly or jumps around.
@Leo - looking for any update on this bug.
It’s become extremely frustrating lately and multiple team members and clients have brought it up.
This short clip shows another example of the difficulty faced here:
There is a large group of options. Carefully set with correlating colors and sorted manually in the order desired. But then in the actual front end drop down, the list is totally jumbled in no specific order. Changing to sort alphabetical vs manual and back doesn’t fix anything.
Also when adding a new field, it seems like many clicks and somewhat confusing navigation to get to where to add options.
Then adding options it’s super annoying that new options display at the top of the list not the bottom of the list.
Then after dragging them all around to sort in order, it still doesn’t even appear in that order in the app.
Thanks again for the reminder and for reporting this issue. I had already added it to our internal priority list when you first posted it, but I forgot to follow up with you here
We’re planning to fix this in the coming days. We delayed it intentionally because we’re reusing parts of the options menu UI for custom labels in phone, email, and link fields, and wanted to solve this properly in one go.
On the other points: new options appearing at the top is a trade-off. In many cases, we think it’s the better default, since jumping to the bottom with scrolling can also be confusing when lists are long. However, we fully understand that managing large option lists still needs to become smoother.
We already have improvements planned here. At some point, there will be an option to allow non-admins to add new options directly from the dropdown, which can be especially valuable for tags. For that, we need to make it possible to rename and reorder options directly inside the dropdown, without going into the field settings. That should make working with longer option lists much simpler.
Thanks again for the detailed feedback, really appreciated.
Thanks @Leo - glad to hear that.
I’m a little concerned about this part though…
I can understand adding new choices (maybe) but non-admin users renaming or reordering options would not be good in my opinion.
Too many calc fields, automation rules, and expected ‘ordered flow of work’ is based around these options. Allowing non admins to make adjustments that could mess up any of those things would be a big mistake I think.
I have to add my concern here as well, I mean i am sure Leo you are thinking of ways to harden this but at first reading it is plain scary what could break.
Not to mention the external tools via API that set fields that could be accidentally (or deliberately) broken in one easy step.
Thanks a lot for the feedback, I completely understand your concerns
We would never allow this generally for all users. The idea is that an admin could explicitly enable it for selected apps and use cases, for example when Multi-Select fields are used for tags.
Separately, we also want to use this implementation in Unlock Mode, so admin users can work faster when managing options directly in the dropdown.
We’re fully aware how sensitive category options are for processes, calc fields, automations, and API integrations, so this would need to be designed very carefully.
