How did my ViewBag become populated with data? - kendo-grid

Question

I'm working with a Kendo Grid that shows a modal when editing or adding a row. I'm seeking to modify the modal and add another dropdown list to it. The one thing I'm totally confused about at the moment is that the cshtml for the modal refers to the ViewBag to provide the source data for the dropdownlists, but I can't find anywhere in the entire solution where any code (anywhere) populates the ViewBag with the properties the modal uses.
Before I started modifying, the cshtml had:
#Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(model => model.Status).BindTo(ViewBag.Statuses).DataTextField("Name").DataValueField("Value").OptionLabel("Please Select")
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The debugger says this is valid; the ViewBag does contain a .Statuses and it is loaded with data, but I've no idea how this thing came to be in the ViewBag. The only place the controller refers to the viewbag is in setting the .Title
Here's cshtml for the modal:
#model ModalModel
#Html.HiddenFor(model => model.Id)
<!-- this is the new one -->
<div class="editor-group">
<div class="editor-label">
#Html.LabelFor(model => model.ProjectId)
</div>
<div class="editor-field">
#Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(model => model.ProjectId).BindTo(ViewBag.ProjectId_Data).OptionLabel("Please Select")
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.ProjectId)
</div>
</div>
<!-- existing one. Needs DataTextField and DataValueField because model.Statuses is not an IEnumerable<SelectListItem>, its a custom collection of c# enum name/value representation -->
<div class="editor-group">
<div class="editor-field">
#Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(model => model.Status).BindTo(ViewBag.Statuses).DataTextField("Name").DataValueField("Value").OptionLabel("Please Select")
#Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Status)
</div>
</div>
Here's a snip of the cshtml for the main grid and some periphery stuff:
#model GridModel
<h3>#ViewBag.Title</h3>
#{
var projectListItems = Model.Projects.Select(e => new SelectListItem { Value = e.Id.ToString(), Text = e.Name });
var activityListItems = Model.Activities.Select(e => new SelectListItem { Value = e.Id.ToString(), Text = e.PrivateName });
}
#(Html.Kendo().Grid<UsageModel>()
.Name("MainGrid")
.Columns(cfg =>
{
cfg.Bound(e => e.DateUsed).ClientTemplate("#= kendo.toString(DateUsed, \"d\") #");
cfg.ForeignKey(e => e.ProjectId, projectListItems, "Value", "Text").Title("Project name").Width(150);
cfg.ForeignKey(e => e.ActivityId, activityListItems, "Value", "Text").Title("Activity name").Width(150);
cfg.ForeignKey(e => e.Status, Model.Statuses, "Value", "Name");
cfg.Command(cmd => { cmd.Edit(); cmd.Destroy().HtmlAttributes(new { style = "visibility:hidden" }); }).Width(80);
})
.Pageable()
...
The 4 items in the ViewBag are:
ProjectId_Data (IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
ActivityId_Data (IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
Status_Data (IEnumerable<SelectListItem>)
Statuses (IEnumerable<a custom internal type used for expanding enums into name/value strings>)
Am I correct in assuming that Kendo added these things to the viewbag as part of the data binding process on the main grid? The rendering of the grid to page occurs before the processing of the modal..

Answer 1

Please give (IEnumerable) inside BindTo() for casting and try
#using Kendo.Mvc.UI
#using System.Collections
#Html.Kendo().DropDownListFor(model => model.Status).BindTo((IEnumerable)ViewBag.Statuses).DataTextField("Name").DataValueField("Value").OptionLabel("Please Select")