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In Odoo, when working with Many2one fields, the label shown in dropdowns (autocomplete fields) is determined by the default name field. However, sometimes you may want to display more context in that dropdown — like combining the record’s name with another field (e.g., device type or custom label).

how to use a computed display_name field to override what appears in the Many2one selection dropdown.

Step 1: Define Your Model and Fields

Let’s assume I'am building a model to represent IoT devices or nodes.

from odoo import models, fields, api

class DeviceNode(models.Model):
    _name = 'device.node'
    _description = 'Device Node'

    name = fields.Char(
        string='Code',
        required=True,
        readonly=True,
        copy=False,
        default=lambda self: self.env['ir.sequence'].next_by_code('device.node.sequence') or 'New'
    )

    item_date = fields.Datetime(string='Date', default=fields.Datetime.now) 
    author = fields.Char(string='Author')

    device_type = fields.Selection([
        ('cctv', 'CCTV'),
        ('temperature', 'Temperature'), 
        ('humidity', 'Humidity'),
        ('stack_light', 'Stack Light'),
    ], default='temperature', string="Type") 

    device_name = fields.Char("Device Name")
    remark = fields.Char("Remark")

    display_name = fields.Char(
        string='Display Name',
        compute='_compute_display_name',
        index =True,
        store=True,
    )

    @api.depends('name', 'device_name')
    def _compute_display_name(self):
        for record in self:
            if record.device_name:
                record.display_name = f"{record.name} - {record.device_name}"
            else:
                record.display_name = record.name

Step 2: Use It in Other Models

Here’s an example of how you can reference device.node in another model:

class MyModel(models.Model):
    _name = 'my.model'

    device_id = fields.Many2one('device.node', string='Device')

Now, when users open the dropdown for device_id, they will see entries like:

DN0005 - Sensor A
DN0006 - Main Camera

Add an Index for Performance

If your dataset is large and you frequently search by display_name, consider adding:

_sql_constraints = [
    ('name_uniq', 'unique(name)', 'Name must be unique!')
]