Sometimes a change applies to many rows at once: fifty orders need their status reset, a whole batch of products moves to a new category, or an obsolete set of records has to go. Instead of opening instances one by one, you can search, select the rows, and apply one change — or one delete — to all of them.

Selecting the rows

Bulk actions work on a selection, the same one used for exporting.

  1. Open the model's instance list and, if useful, filter it down to the rows you care about.
  2. Switch on Multiple selection — the small checklist button at the left of the count bar, just under the toolbar. A checkbox appears on every row.
  3. Tick the rows you want. The checkbox at the very left of the count bar selects or clears every loaded row at once, and a badge shows how many are selected.

The list loads as you scroll or page, so select-all only covers the rows loaded so far. When the search has more, a button appears next to the badge — Select all N results — that extends the selection to every result of the search, including rows you haven't loaded yet.

The selection survives paging and filter changes, so you can collect rows from several searches before acting on them.

As soon as at least one row is selected, two buttons appear next to the badge: a pencil to update properties and a bin to delete. You only see the buttons you have permission to use.

Updating properties

Click the pencil. A dialog opens where you compose the change as a list of assignments — one per property you want to touch.

First, choose the scope:

  • The selection — only the rows you ticked.
  • All results of the current search — every instance matching the active filter, including rows on pages you haven't loaded. With no filter active, that is the whole model.

Then, for each assignment:

  • Choose a property from the dropdown. Each property can appear only once.
  • Pick a mode: Set value writes the value you enter; Clear value empties the property on every targeted instance.
  • With Set value, the property's normal editor appears below — the same field you'd see when editing a single instance, dropdowns, date pickers and language tabs included.

Add property adds another assignment, so a single pass can set one property and clear another.

Some properties are not offered: calculated properties (Yellow recomputes them itself), properties marked read-only, collections, and the state property of a state machine — a state only changes through its transitions.

The confirm button states exactly what will happen — Update 47 instances — and follows the scope you chose. Click it and the change is applied.

All or nothing

A bulk update is atomic: either every targeted instance is updated, or none is. If one instance fails — a validation rule, a missing permission, or someone else editing it at the same moment — the whole operation is cancelled, nothing is written, and the error is shown. Refresh the list and try again.

Properties you didn't include in the dialog keep their values, and every updated instance gets a new version — the previous values stay in its history, like any other edit. Instances whose values already matched are left untouched and reported separately.

Deleting a selection

Click the bin. Like the update, a confirmation dialog lets you choose the scope — the selection, or all results of the current search — and states exactly how many instances will be deleted. Confirm and they're gone from the list.

Deletes are atomic too — all or nothing — and they are soft: the instances disappear from searches but are not destroyed. To bring one back, switch on Include deleted in the toolbar, find the row and click Restore.

Things worth knowing

  • Updating needs permission to update the model's instances; deleting needs permission to delete them. Without them the corresponding button doesn't appear.
  • Already-deleted rows are skipped. If your selection includes deleted instances, bulk actions act on the live ones.
  • The confirm button is your last check. It always states exactly how many instances will be touched — read it carefully, especially when you chose the whole search.