General
Changing fields in bulk is an efficient way to adjust a specific field in a large number of objects with a new value. Examples of updating fields in bulk might be:
Change the supplier of a certain list of assets into a new supplier
Change the manager of a certain list of (employee) contacts in a new manager
Change the owner contact of a list of buildings in a new owner contact
These examples could be done manually, one by one. However, it can be a tedious process, having to update every object manually. It is more efficient to let Workplace Management do the same process in bulk to save ourselves from doing a lot of manually intensive and time-consuming work.
Changing data in bulk is a default feature in Workplace Management that can be initiated via a list page or a standard report as an administrator user.
For objects that use a workflow process (e.g. reservation, request, or work order), it can be necessary to stop and restart the workflow, after a specific field is updated. If the field updated in bulk is used to determine which user(s) will get the task in the workflow, then the workflow needs to be stopped and started again to actually generate the task for those user(s). Usually generating the task for the user(s) is done when the workflow arrives in a particular status. Stopping and starting the workflow is necesarry, if the workflow will not go to a different status, but the task for the user(s) do need to be generated.
For more information on how to stop and start the workflow of a specific object, see: Starting and stopping workflows.
Starting and stopping workflows in bulk (for a list of objects) currently requires customization. For more information, see: Update the workflow status in bulk in the customization section
Updating a field in bulk
Updating a field in bulk is always done via a list of objects. This list can be the result of searching on a specific object (for instance, using advance search on the persons search to return a list of all persons with a certain manager) or using pre-defined reports.
In the list, the following pre-conditions are necessary:
The rows in the list have a multi select option enabled
The ‘Selection' option with the sub option ‘Update fields’ is available
Not all lists might have the option to select or to update fields, since it is either not relevant or not intended to do this with that specific list.
Correct modes
If a certain field is not editable when opening a specific object, it is most likely also not possible to edit the field in bulk via a list of objects. To make sure it is allowed to edit the field in bulk, correction mode needs to be enable on the list. For more information on using the correct mode, see: Correct mode
To actually preform the bulk update:
Select the objects (rows) that have to be updated by clicking on the ‘Selection box’ in front of the relevant rows (or select all rows in one go via the top selection button);
Click on the ‘Update fields’ button;
Select the field that should be updated; (this pull down of fields to choose from contains all fields available for the object and not only the fields displayed on the specific page)
Select the value the field should be updated to;
Click ‘Ok’ to update.
Note: It is not possible to undo this action. Hence, use this functionality with care.
