Bulk Edit | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

Overview

Bulk edit allows users to edit multiple entities at once.

For full instructions on how to bulk edit entities, visit the Edit Entities in Bulk help article.

Merged View

The “merged view” is a view of the selected entities which merges the value across the entities for each field. Under the hood, the system looks at the values for each of the selected entities in the set, and determines the behavior of the field based on the values across the set. There are two different types of merged views.

Non-List Merged View

For field types which are not lists, the system simply computes whether the value is the same across the selected entities, or whether it is different. If the value is the same, the system will display that value as the field value; otherwise, the system will display <various content> as the field value.

List Merged View

For List field types (including multi-option select fields), the system will attempt to compute the list items across the selected entities.

As long as the union of list items across the selected entities is under 50 (see thresholds below), any item which exists in a list on at least one of the selected entities will be populated in the list, and the checkbox will represent the items presence across the selected entities:

• If the item is in the list across all entities, the checkbox will be selected
• If the item exists in the list on only a subset of selected entities, the checkbox will be in the indeterminate state, with a light gray dash.

Checking a checkbox and saving will result in the value being included in the list across all selected entities. Unchecking the checkbox and saving will result in the value being removed from the list across all selected entities.

Merged View Thresholds

In order to ensure that the user can edit the selected entities without waiting for the merge computation, above certain thresholds, the merged view is not calculated at all.

Above these thresholds, a user will simply see placeholder text indicating that the field values were not merged; upon clicking to update, the user will see an empty value, and the user can then provide the value(s) and save across the selected entities.

Unmerged List Behavior

For list-type fields, there are two options provided for when the merged view is not calculated. Once a user has added their new list item(s), they can choose to overwrite the lists across the selected entity profiles, or to simply append the new items to the end of each list.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Editing

Bulk editing large numbers of entities is computationally expensive. In order to ensure that the system provides a strong user experience when editing large numbers of entities, the behavior of bulk edit varies slightly, depending on the count of entities being edited.

When bulk editing fewer than 2,500 entities, any update will be applied synchronously. This means that once the user applies a bulk edit, the user will need to wait for updates to apply before they can continue to use Content.

When bulk editing 2,500 or more entities, updates will be applied asynchronously. In this case, when the user applies a bulk edit, they will see a popup where they can view the progress of the update. They can also continue to use Content while the update is being applied in the background.

Conflicting updates are treated such that “last update wins”. For example, in the following scenario:

1. User selects a set of 3,000 entities to bulk edit. Entity A is included in the set.
2. User bulk-edits the Description field, starting an asynchronous job to update the field value.
3. User then navigates to Entity A in Entity Edit and updates the Description field again, before the asynchronous edit job is completed.

In this case, the update in step 3 would override the update in step 2, since it was made at a later point in time.

Bulk Edit Limitations

Certain features in Content are limited or not supported when bulk editing.

Attributes

Bulk editing a Google attribute will only work if all selected entities in the set have the same Google attribute.

If you are editing a set of entities with the same attributes and they are in the same category, you can edit all these entities in the same bulk edit. If the entities are in different categories, they will need to be split into different batches for each category before bulk editing.

Categories

Bulk editing is not supported at all in the Advanced Categories modal. Any edits in the Advanced Categories modal, including category overrides, must be done on individual entities. For more on category management and overrides, see the Categories reference.

Supported for Synchronous Bulk Edits

These features are only available for synchronous bulk edits (i.e. editing fewer than 2,500 entities at a time):

• Scheduled Updates
• Suggested Edits
• Templates

If you wish to perform these actions for a set of 2,500 or more entities, you will need to do so in batches of fewer than 2,500 entities at a time.