4.3 Picklist Center, Cascading Picklists, and the Employee Central Master Picklist

4.3 Picklist Center, Cascading Picklists, and the Employee Central Master Picklist

Quick Answer: A picklist is a configurable set of options, usually shown as a drop-down. Administrators manage MDF picklists in the Picklist Center, with the Picklist Management and Picklist Mappings Set Up permissions. Picklists and values cannot be deleted, only deactivated. EC projects load SAP's Master Picklist values early through Import and Export Data.

Why Picklists Matter

Picklists keep data clean by limiting what users can enter. Employee Central uses them everywhere: marital status, event, employee status, address types, country-specific values, and custom fields. A picklist can also have a parent-child relationship (a cascading picklist). The State picklist depends on the Country selection, so users see only states of the chosen country.

Picklist Fields

Two notes from THR80 matter in practice:

• At this stage, the Employee Central UI does not respect MDF picklist effective dating. A value added "from January 1" may still appear earlier in EC screens.
• Instance sync of picklists is not allowed when the combinations of external code and legacy picklist ID differ between the source and target instance. Edit the legacy ID so they match.

Picklist Value Fields

When legacy picklists are migrated to MDF, an optionId is generated for MDF picklist values. For migrated legacy options, the existing optionId is kept in a mapping table.

Maintaining Picklists

• Create: in the Picklist Center, choose +, enter the code, name, status, and effective start date (SAP's exercises use January 1, 1900), then add values with +.
• Deactivate, never delete: picklists, versions, and values cannot be deleted.
• Translate: use the globe icon on a value's label, or import translations.
• Export: Import and Export Data > Export Data runs a job you track in Scheduled Job Manager. Download the package when the job completes. The export always contains all records for all effective dates, so it may differ from what the Picklist Center shows for today.
• Import: Import and Export Data > Import Data, validated and tracked in Scheduled Job Manager.
• Codes and external codes are case- and space-sensitive.

The Employee Central Master Picklist

Besides enabling Provisioning settings and uploading the data models, an EC implementation must create picklists. SAP provides an Employee Central Master Picklist file (MDF ZIP) on the SAP Software Download Center. It contains:

• HRIS picklist values used in Employee Central
• Miscellaneous picklist values used in the talent modules
• Delta picklist values introduced by the latest enhancement release
• Other picklist values for components such as Global Benefits and Time Management

Import Considerations

• Some picklists and values may already exist in an EC-enabled system.
• The file contains picklist values only, not the picklists. Create a separate import file for the picklists first, then import the values.
• The file is large. Trim it to the values relevant to the implemented countries.
• Import options: a ZIP import supports full purge only. A CSV import supports both incremental load and full purge.
• Remove duplicates: do not import picklists or values that already exist unless you run a full purge.
• Validate: the Check Tool finds invalid picklist references in personal and employment elements.

Import Steps in THR81

1. In Import and Export Data, choose Download Template for the generic object Picklist with Include Dependencies = No, then download the Picklist Values template the same way.
2. Copy Code, Legacy Picklist ID, Name, Status, and Effective Start Date from the master file into the picklist template and save it as CSV UTF-8.
3. Import it with Import Data, encoding UTF-8, and the file locale that matches the CSV. Validate first, then import.
4. Prepare the values template (id, effectiveStartDate, values.externalCode, values.nonUniqueExternalCode, values.label.defaultValue, values.label.en_US, values.status) and import it the same way. Translations are optional.
5. Confirm the result in the Picklist Center.

With Excel, set the list separator to a comma and open CSVs through the text-import wizard with UTF-8. Alternatively, use a text-based tool such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Country-Specific Gender Values

THR81 notes that country-specific gender values are set up in the Global Information (globalInfo) element. The values "Unknown", "Undeclared", and "Others" can be added to Personal Information through the Upgrade Center. If you use country-specific gender values, leave the gender field in Personal Information blank for consistency.

Linking Picklists to Fields

• Standard or HRIS elements: choose the picklist in the field details in BCUI, or add the picklist ID in the data model.
• MDF fields: set the data type to Picklist and enter the picklist code in Valid Values Source (Section 4.6).