Get unique values from Parent List in Dropdown List SPServices

Question

I have a dropdown list created using the SPServices ($().SPServices.SPCascadeDropdowns). It works as it should, I just need to add a requirement. I need to be able to filter the Parent Lookup list to show only unique values.

$().SPServices.SPCascadeDropdowns({
relationshipList: "ROInsComp",
relationshipListParentColumn: "AIP-RY",
relationshipListChildColumn: "NameAndCode",
parentColumn: "AIP-RY",
childColumn: "NameAndCode",
debug: true

});

The issue is that in AIP-RY I have stored Years and each year could be repeted several times:

Is this even possible?

thanks!

Answer 1

I think you will have to try another way. SPCascadeDropdowns can use a CAML Query, but a CAML Query can not return the unique items the way you want.

There are a number of options discussed on the SPServices Discussion Forums for getting unique items from a list.

I like Frederik's option of returning the HTML for a dropdown from the filter.aspx

$.ajax({
url: weburl+'/_layouts/filter.aspx?ListId='+escape(listId)+'&FieldInternalName='+internalName+'&ViewId='+escape(viewId)+'&FilterOnly=1&Filter=1',
success: function(data) {
    //Do Something
}

});