Bulk changing properties

Overview

Often you will have a set of properties, for example on a page, a line graph or during import to which you want apply a consistent bulk change. The bulk change dialogue is used throughout the system in subtly different flavours, and provides a means to change the analysis group, indicator and unit across a set of properties.

Version: 1.7.2+ (Aug 2017)

Usage: Across the system, when changing a set of properties in bulk

How to use in practice

The bulk change dialogue is used in a range of flavours across the software. It is intended to be used whenever a (potentially large) set of properties need to be modified consistently. It can be accessed from a right-click menu (from pages or applicable graphs) or a link in statistics.

An example would be changing the analysis group for all properties on a page from Sat-GC to WO-GC.

The screenshot of the dialogue above shows how this might look. On the left hand side of the dialogue are typically two boxes - the top box contains the "from" information - in this example you could select a specific analysis to only change that analysis, or select all possible analyses, to change all properties within the list on the right hand side to the target analysis, shown in the lower box, which we have selected to be WO-GC.

The right hand list shows the list of properties in the set to be changed. When the dialogue is first opened these are simply listed, but once a change is proposed, the green arrow (can change) and red cross (cannot change) icons show which properties can (and will) be changed. To effect the change press the Apply analysis changes button. The dialogue will remain open allowing you to also change the indicators and units if desired. If you are finished you will need to Close the dialogue.

Notice there are three tabs on the dialogue enabling the user to change the analyses, indicators and units. If there are changes proposed on any of the tabs that have not yet been applied the * is present after the tab name. Note the icons show that a change is or is not possible, not that it has been made. In practice we advise changing indicators and then units, as when you change indicators this will reset the unit to the default unit for that indicator.

The example below shows the use when changing units:

In the above example only a subset of the properties in the set will be changed, in this case from ppm (by weight) to ppt (by weight) - i.e. the more typical mg/g units used for these pyrolysis properties.

The bulk update is slightly modified to be used in particular ways across the system, and where these changes affect the behaviour, for example when used to update properties in a Line plot further restrictions are applied.