Considering multi-select picklist for email preferences

[Grant_Booth]

Hi all,

We're looking to move to an email preference center instead of a simple Unsubscribe page, and I wanted to ask for some advice regarding the best way to do this.
In the past I've seen a lot of other people set them up using a different boolean field for each email type - an opt-in field for "Product Updates", another for "Events", etc.
I thought it may be simpler and less confusing for our users to rely on a single string field, which is synced with a multi-select picklist field in SFDC called "Email Preferences" or something like that, which would show on forms with the "checkboxes" field type. That way in our smart lists, we could rely on a single filter called "Email Preferences" and use "contains" logic.
I ran some tests and confirmed that both Marketo and SFDC save the data as semi-colon separated, that the data syncs properly into SFDC, and that the form prefill works with this, so I'm leaning toward this solution.

My question: has anyone else out there relied on a multi-select picklist for for their email preferences? Did you run into any problems or feel like it would've been better to use separate boolean fields?

Thanks,

Grant

[Casey_Grimes · Accepted solution]

It honestly depends on your outcome outside of just Marketo and the SPC's purview.

Would you ever want to run a SFDC workflow on the field? Don't use MSPs.

Are you ever going to merge records in Marketo or Salesforce using their default tools? They can't correctly combine values. Ditto if you ever need to update records by import in either system.

If it's a UI problem for SPC end users, alter your form to use MSP but store to boolean. If it's a UX issue for Marketo users, you could always get around this with segment names.

[Jamie-Carey]

What does SPC stand for?

[Casey_Grimes]

Hi Jamie,

Sorry--SPC in this case stands for Subscription Preference Center.

[Grant_Booth]

Our SFDC admin referred to reporting problems and shared this with me:
I think I'm going to go with boolean fields.

[Veronica_Holme4]

Grant - I was actually coming in here as a Salesforce admin to beg you not to go there The reporting problems it causes makes it entirely annoying. I have never met a Salesforce admin who thinks multi-select picklists are a good idea.