Mass Update Protection | Undo in Bulk
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Patrick
So I frequently use the update all function. Selecting all records and being able to do big updates is HUGE for me. However I am also worried that those types of actions could cause big problems if someone makes a mistake.
For example: If I have a smartdoc field or status/categories and say I have a 1000 records. and one of my employees updates the wrong field- how do I undo that action without checking each records activity history and making that change manually?
Basically an Undo button/option would be a nice level of protection.
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Nate Montgomery
Merged in a post:
multi-record actions need to be SAFER to perform
William Porter
SmartSuite is VERY dangerous to use in certain situations. Today, I selected a bunch of records (87 records, to be precise). I was planning to export them. Just before I clicked Export, I noticed a small mistake with one of the records so I clicked into that field and fixed the mistake. Of course that meant that all of the records were modified in the same way. VERY VERY BAD.
I know this is a problem and I warn my clients not to use the record selection check boxes precisely for this reason. So I goofed up. But this is instructive. I'm a pretty expert user, and I am aware that selecting records like this is dangerous, yet I did it any way and got bitten. My clients are NOT expert users and the odds of one them doing something even worse are rather higher.
We need several changes here to the UI, and urgently.
There needs to be a confirmation dialog before there's a batch overwrite of data in multiple records. If you select a bunch of records and then click Delete in the command widget that appears at the bottom of your screen, you get a confirmation dialog. That's good. (The default response there is the destructive one, which seems to me a mistake. But at least there's a confirmation request.) We should get a confirmation request of the same sort before SmartSuite will overwrite multiple records. In some circumstances I've seen such a confirmation request. But I didn't see it today.
And ideally, we need UNDO. The confirmation dialog is critically important because we still have no ability to undo a batch change to records. I think an undo action that's as good as Airtable's is the most important improvement SmartSuite could offer. But until we get that, a confirmation dialog before overwriting multiple records is really needed.
Follow-up prayer: I really really wish that I could prohibit my users from being able to select all the records and/or see that command toolbar at the bottom when they do. We can hide the toolbar at the top in views. Wish I could hide the lower command bar too. One of these days, one of my clients is going to select 800 records, click Delete and then click Enter (the default) and I'm going to have a crying (and possibly swearing) client on the phone in five seconds.
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Yachal Upson
Good points - strikes me would be something of a non-issue with UNDO.
In airtable I use Ctrl+Z 10's of times in a session, allowing very fast workflow with goofs as a normal event. In this respect SS feels hyper-deliberate and plodding.
Tracy Gustilo
I have a similar issue. I added a new field, then used bulk edit to put the default value in all existing records. I forgot to uncheck ALL, then I edited another field... -- and this, of course, changed all records for that (not my intent). This created a giant mess. So, feature suggestion: after a bulk action, auto de-select everything OR require the user to confirm they actually want to change all records (again) for the new action. Or, implement undo for bulk actions.
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Jeff Eusebio
REALLY DANGEROUS WITHOUT the SHIFT or CTRL KEY REQUIRED TO SELECT MULTIPLE RECORDS. I just tripped across this again this morning. And I know what I'm doing! Small scope but enlightening about the UI. I had 2 records selected, changed a status field to run an automation (which takes a while to run). It ran successfully so I picked a 3rd row to run the automation on. Just clicked on the selection box and changed the status field to run the automation. 3 records were changed! I was like WTF. When I realized the UI isn't requiring me to hold down Shift or Ctrl to select multiple records, and those records all stay selected between actions. Uber dangerous setup for this and all the reasons aforementioned.
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Gary Ford
exactly the same thing happened to me 2 days ago - I lost about 35 records Thankfully it was dumb data for testing, I was looking for the UNDO!
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Jeff Eusebio
We're getting close to letting a lot of users into SmartSuite and this is one of my biggest fears. From grid view, if they don't realize they have all records selected, and then update a field (which is easy to do, even accidentally if your attention is drawn away after selecting records). Bam, years of work across hundreds of projects wiped out. Without any ability to roll-back the change.
Just want to 2nd (and 3rd) the suggestion that there needs to be a confirmation dialog before there's a batch overwrite of data in multiple records. And 2 confirmation dialogs, the second one saying in red "This action cannot be undone. Are you sure you want to proceed updating 2400 records with this change?"
Alex Stoica
Jeff Eusebio: or imagine to delete a whole column with 9000 linked records. easy!
Alex Stoica
indeed!
Rachel Dew
Just a confirmation or save button before executing the changes to multiple records would be great!
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Adam Johnston
We need ctrl+z !
Ara Bozadjian
Yup! am guilty of this too! An 'are you sure you want to change all 87 records?' confirmation would, in most cases, prevent this error.
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