Bulk Actions

It is possible to perform some actions on more than one record at once, like a bulk update or bulk delete

Within a Landing Page view, you can apply a change to the records in the view by using the Bulk Actions functionality. This can be all records, or a subset which have been defined by applying filters. The actions that can be carried out are:

• Reassign – This reassigns all the identified Records to a specific Workbooks user.
• Delete – This deletes all the Records.
• Update – You can choose to update one or more fields on all the identified Records, giving them all the same value
• Add to Campaign / Mailing List / Mailshot – You can choose to add one or more Records from a Landing Page (People/Organisations/Sales Leads) to a Marketing Campaign, Mailing List or Mailshot and apply a Member Status to those records.
• Create Tasks – This will come with options to create Activities against the chosen Records.
• Create Compliance Records – This creates Compliance Records against the Record, this action is only available for People and Sales Leads Records.
• Recalculate Permissions – If you have the Advanced Security Extension enabled you are able to apply custom Permission rule sets to Records.
• Tasks/Meetings – This is used to Reassign, Update, Delete, Create Tasks and Recalculate permissions on the selected Activities type.

Performing Bulk Actions

Bulk Actions are performed in the background and the user will be notified when the action is complete. Pending and Completed Bulk Actions can be viewed on the Bulk Actions Landing Page (Start > Bulk Changes > Bulk Actions). Bulk Actions can be undone for a period of up to 30 days after they’ve been carried out.

The ability to perform Bulk Actions is controlled by the following Capabilities, which can be granted by your System Administrator if required:

• Bulk Reassign records.
• Bulk Delete records.
• Bulk Update records.
• Bulk add Marketing Campaign Members.
• Bulk update Marketing Campaign Member Status
• Bulk add Mailing List Members.
• Bulk add Mailshot recipients.
• Bulk Recalculate permissions.
• Bulk Create Task records.

To carry out a Bulk Action, navigate to the Landing Page for the appropriate record type. Here you can use filtering to identify the records you want to change/delete/ add to a Campaign. When the grid shows the record(s) you want to change/delete, click ‘Bulk Actions’ and choose the appropriate option. 

The options available depend on the Record Type that you are working with and the Capabilities that you have been granted. The options will be some or all of the following:

• Add to Campaign – You can use the drop-down next to Marketing Campaign to specify which Campaign to add the records to and specify the Member Status to apply to the records for that Campaign. Then click Add Marketing Campaign Members
• Delete – You will be asked if you’re sure you want to Delete the record(s). Choose Yes or No as appropriate
• Reassign – You will be provided with a drop-down picklist of all the users to whom you can reassign the record(s). You can then click Reassign People;
• Update – You will be provided with a greyed out list of all the fields for the record type you want to update. Clicking on one of the options allows you to set the new value you want your identified records to have. You can click on multiple options to update multiple fields.
• Recalculate Permissions – You will be prompted to confirm that you want to change the permissions on the selected records. Any records that have been shared with individual users, and which are not specified in that Record Type’s Sharing Policy, will be removed and set back to that of the Permissions configuration. For more information on setting up Permissions, see here. You may also be interested in this forum article.
• Tasks/Meetings – This option is available on Activities landing page when the view is set to either Card or Grid view. After navigating to Bulk Actions button, a dropdown list is presented with the following Activities types: Tasks or Meetings. Regardless of the Activities type selected you will then be shown a list of Bulk Action functions that can be performed Reassign, Update, Delete, Create Tasks and Recalculate permissions. 

Whichever option you choose, you will see a message saying that your Bulk Action has been scheduled and you will be notified when it is complete. You can carry on working in Workbooks while the records are being updated.  You will be notified when the Bulk Action has finished. Click Open to see information on how many records have been updated and whether or not there are any errors or warnings.

Proceed with caution before bulk deleting data – think about the effect on other records in your database. For example, deleting records will also delete their links to other records on Workbooks.  So if you delete Organisation records you will delete their relationships with any People records and you could end up with People records that don’t contain employer information. 

Similarly, if you delete People records, you may end up with Activity records that show no Primary Contact information. Consider too that the records you delete might be used in Dynamic Linked Items/Picklists so deleting these could affect existing data on your system.

Workbooks will not allow you to delete People or Organisation records that are related to transaction records.

Undoing Bulk Actions

Bulk Actions can be undone for a period of up to 30 days after they have been performed. To undo an action, navigate to the Bulk Actions Landing Page (Start > Bulk Changes > Bulk Actions). Choose the row from the grid that you want to undo and click the ‘Undo’ button. The Undo request will be queued up and you will receive a notification when it’s complete.

Your records will be returned to the state they were in before you carried out the Bulk Action. In the case of undoing a delete, any Notes relating to the reinstated record and links to other records will be recreated.

Bulk Actions on a Report

You are able to perform a Bulk Action like you would on a Landing Page from a Report, this allows you to include additional information from other Record types that is not possible from a Landing Page.

From the Report you are able to perform the same Bulk Actions on the Record as you would be able to from a Landing Page. As with Bulk Actions from a Landing Page all Bulk Actions can be reviewed or undone from (Start > Bulk Changes > Bulk Actions).

We have created Forum Posts that provide step by step examples of Reports that can be built and the Bulk Action that you would use. They are updating the Industry Field for Organisations in the IT & Telecommunications Industry and creating a Compliance Record against a Sales Lead that has visited the website this month.