 <p>You mention that somebody else encountered the problem and didn't receive a response, however the linked forum thread does contain a response and an answer to this issue. In that particular case a Javascript error had occurred on the page which prevented the dropdown from initializing correctly and I believe this is also the case for yourself. </p> <p>Although not completely working because there isn't a valid datasource, I took your example code and dumped it into a <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/nukefusion/BXxGS/" rel="nofollow">jsFiddle</a> and (after fixing some JS errors) you can see that the dropdown appears absolutely fine.</p> <p>In particular, there were errors regarding <code>grid</code> and <code>sitePath</code> not being defined that prevented the dropdown from initializing.</p> <pre><code> var grid; var sitePath = ''; $().ready(function () { grid = $('#listDiv').kendoGrid({ dataSource: { type: 'json', serverPaging: true, pageSize: 10, transport: { read: { url: '', data: { ignore: Math.random() } } }, schema: { model: { id: 'Id', fields: { Id: { type: 'number' }, Name: { type: 'string' }, Ex: { type: 'string' }, Date: { type: 'string' }, Check1: { type: 'string' }, Check2: { type: 'string' }, Check3: { type: 'string' }, Check4: { type: 'string' }, Check5: { type: 'string' }, Edit: { type: 'string' } } }, data: "Data", total: "Count" } }, scrollable: false, toolbar: kendo.template($("#template").html()), columns: [ { field: 'Name' }, { field: 'Ex' }, { field: 'Date' }, { template: '#=Template1#' + sitePath + '#=Patient1#', field: 'Patient1', title: 'Patient 1', width: 50 }, { template: '#=Template2#' + sitePath + '#=Patient2#', field: 'Patient2', title: 'Patient 2', width: 50 }, { template: '#=Template3#' + sitePath + '#=Patient3#', field: 'Patient3', title: 'Patient 3', width: 50 }, { template: '#=Template4#' + sitePath + '#=Patient4#', field: 'Patient4', title: 'Patient 4', width: 50 }, { template: '#=Template5#' + sitePath + '#=Patient5#', field: 'Patient5', title: 'Patient 5', width: 50 } ], pageable: true }); var dropDown = grid.find("#external").kendoDropDownList({ dataTextField: "ExName", dataValueField: "ExId", autoBind: false, optionLabel: "All", dataSource: { type: "json", severFiltering: true, transport: { url: '@Url.Action("_Ex", "Entry")', data: { ignore: Math.random() } } }, change: function () { var value = this.value(); if (value) { grid.data("kendoGrid").dataSource.filter({ field: "ExId", operator: "eq", value: parseString(value) }); } else { grid.data("kendoGrid").dataSource.filter({}); } } }); theGrid = $('#listDiv').data('kendoGrid'); }); </code></pre>