Dropdown Values

A better approach:

User Role-Based Dropdowns:

support.sugarcrm.com/.../

Create a Role that no one has which is not assigned to anyone in your company and call it "Legacy" 

Then set the dropdown values so that only the "Legacy" Role has visibility of those items you want to retire.

I have not tried this but will make a note to do so.

To the best of my understanding (I've not tried) the Role based dropdown settings mean the user can see the value but not use it when creating/updating.

FrancescaS

Great point, Francesca Shiekh . I don't think you need to create a legacy role though. You would just need to have one or more roles for your users that restrict visibility of the 'retired' dropdown options.

I just tested using role-based dropdowns for this purpose and they function as you understand. If the record is associated with a value the user doesn't have access to via their role, they will still see the value and when editing the record, the value will show in the dropdown list (so it can still be saved with that value). If the user changes it to one of the values they have access to, then they will not be able to change it back to the role-restricted value. 

Using this approach means all regular users need to belong to a role and depending on how many roles you use, you need to ensure all those roles are maintained to remove visibility of outdated dropdown options. Also, be aware that admin users would still see all dropdown options since they do not adhere to role restrictions. 

Chris

I think having admins be able to se the legacy roles is not a bad thing. There may be scenarios where they indeed need to. And admins should know what's what so not terrible. Adding  a legacy label may help everyone understand why these roles are restricted.

I think having admins be able to se the legacy roles is not a bad thing. There may be scenarios where they indeed need to. And admins should know what's what so not terrible. Adding  a legacy label may help everyone understand why these roles are restricted.