Hack Form Selection Criteria For Mass Updates

Hack Form Selection Criteria For Mass Updates

Every now and then you may come across an update that has been designed to be performed one record at a time, and you have 10’s, 100’s, or even 1000’s of records that you want to update at once.  Even though it seems like all hope is lost and that you are going to end up with carpel tunnel syndrome from too many mouse clicks, it’s not a bleak as you think.

There is a way that you can usually hack the selection query that is used by default for the form to widen up the range of records that will be updated at once.  And it’s pretty easy to do as well.

PROBLEM IS…

On some forms, if you select one record then you are able to use the menu items.

But if you select multiple records, then the menu’s are disabled.

HOW TO DO IT…

Select one record and click on the menu item that you want to apply to all of the records = in this case the Print option for the Interest Notes.  Notice the selection criteria in the dialog form shows the record that will be used for this update.

Click on the Select button to change the selection criteria.

When the selection query editor is displayed you will be able to see the selection criteria records again.

Blank out the fields that you don’t want to filter on to open up the selection to a wider range of records and then click on the OK button.

When you return to the selection dialog box you will notice that those field selections are now blank.  Just click on the OK button to continue.

HOW IT WORKS…

This will now perform the action that was only being allowed to be applied to the single record to all of the records that match the search range.