Create Choice Column With Fill-in Options in SharePoint Document Library

When working with document libraries in SharePoint, we need to classify documents by type, for example, Invoice, Contract, Policy, Proposal, etc. The most common way to do this is by creating a choice column called Document Type with predefined values.

But what if a user needs to upload a document that doesn’t fit into the existing list? Can we let them enter their own document type while still keeping the field mandatory?

The good news is that this is indeed possible in SharePoint Online. You can create a custom column for a specific library and configure it to accept both predefined values and user input.

In this post, I’ll show you how to create a choice column with Fill-in options in a SharePoint Document Library.

Create a Choice Column with Fill-in Options in a SharePoint Document Library

To achieve this, we’ll add a Choice column to the document library and enable the Fill-in choices option.

For this example, I have a document library called Team Documents. Check the screenshot below:

Follow the steps below:

1. Go to the SharePoint site and navigate to the library where you want to create the custom document type field.
2. In the document library, click + Add column -> Choice. Then, click Next.

2. Provide the name of the column Document Type. Enter your common document types, such as Invoice, Contract, Policy, and Proposal.

3. Expand More options, turn on Require that this column contains information, and then click the Save button.

4. Go to the Library settings of the Corporate Records library, and click on the Choice column you created in the previous step.

5. Scroll down to the settings, set Allow “Fill-in” choices to Yes, and then click OK.

This enables users to either select from predefined values or enter their own custom value when uploading or editing a document.

Test the Choice Column with Fill-in Options

To verify that the column works as expected, follow these steps:

1. Click Upload -> Files, and select a document to upload.
2. After the upload, you’ll be prompted to fill in the metadata. In the Document Type field:

3. Type a custom value (for example, Agreement) in the field.

Now you can see the custom fill-in value present in the Document Type column.

You’ll now see that the document appears in the library with the Document Type column showing either the predefined choice or your custom fill-in value.

Another great feature of the Fill-in choices option is that when users enter a custom value for the first time (for example, Agreement), SharePoint automatically remembers it.

The next time you upload or edit a document and set the Document Type column, the custom value will also appear in the dropdown list, along with the predefined values.

I hope this SharePoint tutorial was helpful to you.

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