Mass Edit

Initiating Mass Edit

Mass Edit is a bulk/batch update of multiple items (in the same tracker) at once.

To start a Mass Edit, select one or more items in the tracker (table) view and then choose Mass Edit... from the more menu:




This will bring up a dialog, where you can select the fields to be updated from the More... selector, that will show only those fields, where you have Edit permission in the current status of each selected item.

Please note that table type fields and Summary field (the one with "name" property) cannot be updated by Mass Edit feature.

Mass Edit dialog

This dialog has two main parts; the body of the dialog contain one ore more field updates and the bottom some buttons.

Saving the changes executes the operation immediately. It is also possible to create a baseline during the mass edit operation:

Setting Field updates

For each selected field, you can choose, whether to

• Set or
• Clear

the value of this field.

Depending on the field type, there are also additional type specific operations.

Text and Wiki fields also support to

• Prepend or
• Append

a value to the existing value (with an optional separator).

Numeric and Duration fields also support to

• Increment or
• Decrement

the existing value by the specified value.
In other words Add or Substract the specified value to/from the existing field value.

Multiple Choice fields also support to

• Add
• Remove

the specified value(s) to/from the existing field value(s), or to

• Retain

only those existing field values that are contained in the specified (collection of) values.
In other words, removes those existing values, that are not contained in the specified (collection of) values.


The value(s) to apply can be

• (a constant) Value, that you can enter/select via the appropriate value editor, or
• the Result of evaluating an expression, that computes/calculates the value (see Computed Fields).

For example: Compute the new value for End Date by shifting the existing End Date 3 hours into the future, because we had to reconsider (increase) the Planned Effort.




To Edit a field to update, you can:

• Double click the field value you want to change/edit.
• Right click the field name and choose Edit from the context menu.

To Remove a field to update:

• Click on the X icon.

Please make sure, that you have committed all open field value editors with OK, before you start the batch update by OK on the dialog, otherwise the uncommitted editor values will get lost.



In CB-7.9.2 and newer, you can also apply multiple value update operations on fields, that allow multiple values.

For example:

• Assign the item to all Owners, except those having role Tester
  • Assigned to: Set to content of Owner, Remove Tester
• Assign the item to all Owners, plus user bond
  • Assigned to: Set to content of Owner, Add bond
• Remove all assignees in role Developer and newly assign users in role Tester
  • Assigned to: Remove Developer, Add Tester

There can be also constellations with three or more operations, e.g.

• Assign the item to all Owners, that have the role Administrator, except members of group System Admin
  • Assigned to: Set to content of Owner, Retain Administrator, Remove System Admin

To add additional field value update operations, click on the More... button of the field update editor.





To Remove additional field value update operations:

• Right click the field value update operation and choose Remove from the context menu.

Because the order of operations is significant, you can re-order additional field value update operations via drag-and-drop (in edit mode).

Relationship with New Baseline workflow action

New Baseline workflow action creates a baseline, when some transition occurs. During a mass edit operation the semantics of this workflow action is different. The workflow action itself is not executed, the user instead has to create the baseline manually with the mass edit dialog.

Settings for this workflow action:

Mass edit operation in this Tracker: