Reverse List

Dependent List Reversal

Lists are a powerful way to organize your organization's standardized allowed metadata for use in the submission table. Dependent lists take this further by linking two or more columns together, so selecting a value in one column automatically populates the rest. This article covers List Reversal, a new capability that lets you flip which column in a Dependent list serves as the key column users select from.

Feature Overview

Normally, a Dependent list treats the first column as the "key" column, the value users choose from, while the remaining columns auto-populate and lock. List Reversal introduces a Flip Processing Order checkbox in field governance that reverses this behavior for the entire list, making the last column the key column instead of the first. All other columns then auto-populate and lock, following the reversed order.

Why This Feature Matters

Previously, supporting both inbound and outbound data often meant maintaining two versions of the same list, one encoded and one unencoded, just so users could select from whichever value made sense for their workflow. That duplication created extra maintenance work every time a list needed updating.

List Reversal removes that need. Instead of maintaining two lists, you maintain one and flip its processing order. Allowing the system to map the publisher friendly value back into the platform as a clean value.

How It Works (High Level)

When the Flip Processing Order checkbox is selected for a Dependent list, the system reverses the processing order for the entire list, swapping which column drives the selection and which columns lock and auto-populate.

A few things to know about current functionality:

• This feature applies to Dependent lists only. 
• Reversal applies to the whole list at once.

How to Use List Reversal

1. Navigate to Admin Settings → Elements → Field Sets. 
2. Open the Field Set containing the field associated with your Dependent list. 
3. Click the Field Name to edit it, then select the Flip Processing Order checkbox. 
4. Click Save.

at the fieldset level :

Once saved, the last column of the list becomes the key column, editable and selectable by users, while the other columns lock and auto-populate based on that selection. The template detail view clearly indicates which lists have been reversed, so admins and users can tell at a glance which key column is active and editable.

Tips and Best Practices

• Reversal affects the whole list, so plan for all columns to shift roles rather than just one.
• If you need partial reversal or drill-down list support, share that feedback with your Claravine team. Future iterations may expand support based on customer input.
• Consider whether reversing an existing list versus creating a new reversed reference list makes more sense for your workflow. 

Example Workflow

A Dependent list has two columns: Column 1 is Country Code (encoded, e.g., "US") and Column 2 is Country Name (friendly, e.g., "United States"). 

Before List Reversal, users selected from Country Code, and Country Name auto-populated, or a second list was maintained for the reverse lookup. 

With Flip Processing Order enabled, users instead select from Country Name, and Country Code auto-populates and locks. This removes the need to maintain two separate lists to support both directions of data.