Performing Bulk Updates in Zoho Desk

Performing Bulk Updates in Zoho Desk

When working in Zoho Desk, you may come across the need to perform a bulk update of properties on more than 50 tickets in a list at once. For instance, you have a ticket list where you manage tickets assigned to you. You are taking time off for a vacation next week and need to reassign those tickets to your colleague. You find that there are more than 100 tickets that need to be assigned. How do you do that quickly?

Of course, you can increase the number of tickets displayed on a list view to 50 and assign them in batches, but Zoho Desk has a more straightforward way to do this. In this article, we will explore the bulk update option that allows you to update several hundred to thousands of records at one go.

Note:
  1. Bulk actions are available only for the tickets module.

Bulk Actions
Zoho Desk allows you to perform the following bulk actions on tickets.
  1. Assign
  2. Update
  3. Close
  4. Delete
  5. Move
  6. Apply Macro

Performing Bulk Actions
Performing a bulk action is similar to how you do a mass update, except for the number of records involved.

To perform a bulk action:
  1. Log into your Zoho Desk account.
  2. Go to the Tickets module.
  3. Select the view from the left pane in which you want to update tickets in bulk.
  4. Select a ticket in the list view and then check the blank square shown at the top of the page.
    This will select all tickets on the current page (max. 50).



  5. Now, click the Select all tickets in this view that appears.
    This allows you to select all tickets in the list view.



  6. Once all the tickets in the list view are selected, select a bulk action.
    You can perform actions such as     assigning, updating, closing, deleting, moving, and applying macro to them.
  7. Click Continue to confirm your action.
Once initiated, the bulk action will be scheduled for execution either immediately or after the previously queued up actions are completed.

Points to Remember
Here are some key points to keep in mind before you initiate bulk actions on tickets.
  1. Performing bulk actions will take a few minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the number of tickets.
  2. Bulk action initiators and administrators will receive email notifications with status once a bulk action process is complete.
  3. You can initiate a maximum of 11 bulk actions at once, where one of them is in process, and the others (10) are in the queue.
  4. Bulk actions are available only when there are more than 50 tickets in a list view.
  5. Only one bulk action is permitted to run at a time, per view. However, you can initiate bulk action on multiple views, and such actions will be queued for execution.
  6. Bulk actions cannot be initiated on the following ticket list views:
    1. Spam Tickets
    2. Shared Open Tickets
    3. Shared Tickets
    4. Blueprint Views [All Blueprint related views]
    5. Archived Views [All archived ticket views]
  7. Bulk actions are not available on the All Departments view.
  8. Merge, and Mark Spam options will not be available for bulk action.
  9. Move option is available only for bulk actions, and you must have more than two departments to view this option.
  10. You must have the requisite profile permissions to perform the different operations available under bulk actions, such as closing tickets.

Bulk Actions Log
The bulk actions log will give you detailed information about the various bulk operations executed in your Zoho Desk account. You can view a list of the bulk actions under process (both in-progress and queued) and those completed. It also shows the execution time, action type, who executed it, view name, department name, and current status.

To view bulk action logs:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. Click Bulk Actions Log under the Data Administration menu.
  3. You can see a list of bulk actions currently being processed and those that are queued.
  4. Inside the Completed tab, you can view all of the bulk actions that have been completed along with their status.



Discarding Bulk Actions
Bulk action, once initiated, can be discarded before the schedulers process them. It can be discarded either by the user who initiated it or by the administrator.

To discard a bulk action:
  1. Go to Setup > Data Administration > Bulk Actions Log.
  2. Hover your mouse pointer on a queued bulk action and click the Discard link.
  3. Click Discard again to confirm your action.



Note:
  1. You cannot discard a bulk action that is already in progress.
  2. Successful bulk actions will display the number of tickets processed by it.
  3. Bulk actions may fail due to disabled back-end schedulers, modified list views, or internal server errors.
    Failed bulk actions will show one of these reasons in the log.