Multiple dependent values for a choice field

[e_wilber]

I have a situation where I have a handful of groups that all have a pretty big list of categories.

Some of these categories overlap, some are unique to just the value of a "service type" field. Each group has ~ 40 - 60 total categories

If each group had their own unique set of categories, I'd create a new category for each of them and use the dependent value but there are so many duplicates. Also, if I created multiple categories with different values the list views and reports wouldn't accurate show how many are in each category.

Example:

Service Type: Operations

Category: Test 1 (value: 1)

Category: Test 2 (value: 2)

Service Type: Sales

Category: Test 1 (value: 3)

Category: Test 3 (value: 4)

Using the above, in list view the text for Category Test 1 would look the same (and for reports) but the values are actually different. If I right-clicked and matched on "test 1" it would only show me the specific value for that service type.

My question is:

Is there any way to share a choice field value with multiple dependent values? Like a comma separated list in the Value field?

If not, is there anything wrong or potentially bad if I create multiple categories with the same label and same value just with a different dependent value?

My issue:

It's taking about 5 seconds for the page to load every time something is saved because we're doing a ton of remove/add options to this field with a client script. If we had less values and options it probably wouldn't be a huge deal but the impact is pretty heavy.

The secondary issue is since I'm using a client script to filter the categories, all categories appear as options when you're editing via list view. I'd really like to use dependent values instead.

[Michael Fry1]

Are you sitting in the cubicle next to me because I'm facing very similar problem! We're using Assignment rules (not lookup rules) to set the assignment group, but that's not ideal as you can't confirm tickets are routing correctly before clicking save/update like you can with lookup rules. We do have a company field on our form, and that seems to be the decider for which possibly I can make Category dependent upon company. If blank, show all, but if company is x, just show these Categories. That means setting up new cats/subcats for each company with the same name. I did a quick test and it worked great but I'm not sure how you can differentiate using company.