vRA 8.x - Service Broker - Define Default Value in Custom Form for Project Dropdown Element

[stratoCumulus]

In most content items' custom form, there is a "Project" element under "General Elements" that is a dropdown which allows you to select the projects the requester has available to them.

With custom form not enabled, this dropdown defaults to a value (I think of it as element 0 in the array/list of projects). When the custom form is enabled, the dropdown then defaults to a blank element, with the elements selectable below it. 

Without using an external action (if possible would prefer not to for performance), is there a way to have the Project dropdown with the custom form enabled behave the way it does when no custom form is enabled (not default to a blank value)?

Thanks

[BrettK1]

The simplest answer I can think of is If there's a project that is always valid for the custom template, you can set the value as a constant to the project name.
Thus far, all of my Templates are specific to a single project (because otherwise I would need a lot of vRO massaging to make drop downs and input fields appropriate to that project), and therefore specifically set the Project Value to the name of the project (and then make the Project field Not Visible).
I have not seen any method for selecting something other than the blank without an external source for completely dynamically generated inputs (i.e. your Projects has no guaranteed always existing valid project value - in which case I'd be very interested in seeing your Projects/Templates/Custom Forms, as they would be the complete opposite of ours thus far!)

[stratoCumulus]

Thanks for the response. This is a good option, but unfortunately won't work for me because of how I need to have projects set up.

I ended up modifying my actions to quickly return placeholder values in the form fields until the form elements they depend on have good data (Project/projectId in particular). It works well and gives a general feel of responsiveness while still giving the dynamic options I need. 

I saw another interesting option that may work for some: set up configuration elements in vRO, and reference them like a simple database/cache, which speeds up forms while still using actions to dynamically populate fields. This also wasn't a good option for me since the configuration elements would be too many and change too often to be practical.