Use Bulk Actions to Cut Out Repetitive Tasks
Tired of doing repetitive tasks in PCO? Today, I’m going to show you an easy way to clean records fast with next to no work.
Hurts My Heart!
You want to know what hurts me to the core? When I talk to fellow PCO users who are cleaning their database going record to record and making the same changes sometimes HUNDREDS of times and using up untold hours.
My App helps to cut out much of this tedious repetition but there are some things you can do inside of PCO without my app. Enter…(wait for it)(cue dramatic music)…BULK ACTIONS!!!
We’ve used bulk actions (actually automations, but similar) when we learned to assign gender roles based on registrations but today, we’re going to drill down.
What is a Bulk Action?
When you create a list in PCO, it’s often because you want to take an action. Bulk actions allow you to perform an action on an entire list of people without any effort from you.
Let me set the stage.
In Clean My PCO, when we identify a profile that needs your attention, we create a workflow card. It’s our way of telling you that a profile needs human eyes. That person’s profile has a custom field written to it giving the reason that we flagged it for your review.
When you have reviewed the profile, you will want to remove that custom field information because you addressed the issue. You have 2 choices:
Choice #1 — You can go into the profile, then into the custom field, then delete the information. That’s tedious and annoying.
Choice #2 — You can perform a bulk action and remove all the attributes at the same time with a handful of clicks.
I think I know what option you’re going to choose.
How to Perform the Bulk Action
Step #1 — You have to create a list. You can perform bulk actions on any list, so I won’t go into how to create one. Once you have the list, look for the bulk action icon on the results screen.
Step #2 — Choose the bulk action. There are many to choose from but if you remember the problem I laid out above, the bulk action we’re focused on here is to remove information from a custom field. Here’s how we do that:
First, click the bulk action button to get to this screen. In the Action section above, I chose the custom tab where the custom field is located (Communications) and the custom field (Update Possible Invalid E-mail). Then, in the value section, I told it to change the value to “Unanswered.”
Your custom information may be in a different spot so your “Action” values will be different from mine above.
When I click the “Perform action on 449 people” button, PCO will automatically clear the Update Possible Invalid E-mail” field.
Amazing, right?!?! How many hours would it have taken me to change 449 profiles manually?
SOOO Many Possibilities
I won’t go through all the bulk actions that are possible but believe me when I say that there are a lot. It’s well worth your time to look through every drop-down menu. You will find all kinds of useful bulk actions that will save you time now or in the future.
Bulk Actions Vs. Automations
In past articles, we’ve talked about automations. They sound a lot like automations, don’t they? What’s the difference? Nothing, really. It’s the same menu with the same options. (I didn’t check to make sure it’s EXACTLY the same but I bet it is…or very close). The difference is that a bulk action is something you do as needed. An automation is a bulk action that happens every morning at 2:00am. You set it up once, and it happens until you tell it to stop.
There you go! You now know how to create a bulk action! If you didn’t know how before, I should now officially be on your Christmas card list.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes we’re so busy with the day to day, we don’t take time to learn new things about the tools we use every day. Not investing in our own knowledge can cost us SOOO MANY hours of wasted work. It can also lead us to think that the tool isn’t adequate for our needs.
I want to encourage you to learn something new in PCO at least once per week. Read an article, check out the message boards, or just jump in and look at a menu you haven’t explored.
(Or read past entries here on my blog)
The time you invest in learning something new is time you will get back in efficiency. I promise! And if you don’t, let me know…I’ll point you in the right direction.