Lock variable value selections?

[cr-dev]

Is there a way to lock the values of a mktoList?

For example, we have HEX values in a mktoList so a user can select from brand colors. We have found that even those these options are available via a dropdown, someone can simply type a new HEX value into the variable field bypassing the dropdown options. Is there anyway to lock that field so they are only able to select one of the provided values?

[Dave_Roberts · Accepted solution]

I'm fairly certain that the only way to go about this is via training or a QA process -- the way I've seen it handled in the past is to have the author (editor) hand off the completed asset to another team member or QA team (think branding, spell check, etc) to put a second set of eyes on stuff before it goes live. I'd recommend some kind of QA and testing process for everything that goes out, it's an easy way to avoid major mistakes and catch the little things that fall thru the cracks when you've got a lot of hands doing work.

If you're really suffering from folks going rogue, it might be a better idea to lock down the color options (remove the option/variable to change them) and make variations of the templates which use the different colors that are hard-coded.

Another option (which might not work as well with email elements, but maybe some things like buttons) would be to use CSS classes in the dropdown to control the styling of things like buttons. In this way, you could have a "Button A" and "Button B" option which would style a button two different colors by picking up a class in the <style> portion of the email but would not allow a hex code to be input and/or any other options to be entered like "Button C" or "red" b/c those wouldn't tie into the style sheet and the button would look obviously broken (the colors would default to something else that wasn't branded and stand out).

Here's a link to the documentation for reference -- I don't see anything in there to suggest a way to lock the options to only accept the dropdown values: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/marketo/using/product-docs/email-marketing/general/email-edi...

[SanfordWhiteman]

Completely agree with Dave that if people are defying brand guidelines even after warnings, that’s a process issue!

There is a very complex way to pre-process variable values using Velocity to see if they were in the list of suggestions. I would choose process changes/enforcement over this option unless you truly have people who can’t be stopped.

[cr-dev]

Whoops, didn't mean for someone to spend that much time on a response. I was pretty certain there wasn't a way. Our QA process of testing the template is where the question came from, just doing some due diligence to make sure before I told them it can't be locked. Seems odd to put a list of options in there if they can still be overwritten. Anyway, thanks for your time and responses.

[Dave_Roberts]

No worries, good questions get good answers 🙂 Thanks for raising the question here, a lot of times it'll end up helping folks in the future who run into a similar question to have some options/ideas.