DocumentationAEM 6.4Administering Guide

The Bulk Editor the-bulk-editor

Last update: Wed May 03 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin
CAUTION
AEM 6.4 has reached the end of extended support and this documentation is no longer updated. For further details, see our technical support periods. Find the supported versions here.

The Bulk Editor allows for very efficient editing when the visual page context is not needed as it lets you:

  • search for (and display) content from multiple pages; this is done using GQL (Google Query Language)
  • edit this content directly in the bulk editor
  • save the changes (to the originating pages)
  • export this content to a tab-separated (.tsv) spreadsheet file
NOTE
You can also import content into the repository, but by default this is disabled for the Bulk Editor as available in the Tools console.

This section describes how to work with the bulk editor in the Tools console. Typically, administrators use the bulk editor to search and edit multiple items. This is done by populating the table using a GQL query and then by selecting the content items to work on. Authors generally use the bulk editor as part of a customized bulk editor application accessible through the product listing component.

CAUTION
With the deprecation of the Classic UI in AEM 6.4, the Bulk Editor has also been deprecated and thus Adobe does not plan to further enhance the Bulk Editor.

Example Use Case for the Bulk Editor example-use-case-for-the-bulk-editor

For example, if you need all the names and email addresses of users who filled out a particular survey, the Bulk Editor can provide that information and you can export it into a spreadsheet.

An example to illustrate such a use case is included in the Geometrixx web site:

  1. Navigate to the Support page and then to the Customer Service Satisfaction survey.

  2. Edit the Start of Form paragraph. In the dialog click the Advanced tab, expand the Action Configuration, then click View Data….

    custsatsurvey

  3. The Bulk Editor is fully customizable., though in this example the bulk editor does not allow users to edit the content, but only lets them export the information to a spreadsheet.

    bulkeditor

How to Use the Bulk Editor how-to-use-the-bulk-editor

The bulk editor allows you to:

Searching and Editing Content searching-and-editing-content

To use the bulk editor to edit multiple items simultaneously:

  1. In the Tools console, click the Importers folder to expand it.
  2. Double-click the Bulk Editor to open it.
  3. Enter your selection requirements:
Field
Property
Root Path
Indicates the root path the bulk editor searches.
For example, /content/geometrixx/en. The bulk editor searches over all child nodes.
Query Parameters
Using GQL parameters, enter the search string you want the bulk editor to look for in the repository; for example, type:Page looks for all pages in the root path, text:professional looks for all pages that have the word "professional" in them, and "jcr:title":English looks for all pages that have "English" as the title. You can only search for strings.
Content Mode check box
Select this check box to read properties within the jcr:content sub node of the search results if exists. Use for pages only. Property names are prefixed with "jcr:content/"
Properties/Columns
Select the check boxes for the properties that you want the bulk editor to return. The properties you select are the column heads in the results pane. By default, the node path is displayed in the results.
Custom Properties/Columns
Enter any other properties that are not listed in the Properties/Columns field. These custom properties appear in the results pane. You can add multiple properties by using a comma to separate properties. Note: If you add a custom property that does not yet exist, AEM WCM displays an empty cell. When you modify the empty cell and save it, the property is added to the node. The newly created property must respect node type constraints and property namespaces.

For example:

searchfilter

  1. Click Search. The Bulk Editor displays the results.

    For the example above, all the pages that meet your search criteria are returned and displayed with the requested columns.

    chlimage_1-238

  2. Make any changes you need by double-clicking in a cell.

    srchresultedit

  3. Click Save to save your changes (the Save button will be activated once you have edited a cell).

    note caution
    CAUTION
    The changes you make here are written to the repository content; for example, the page referenced in Path.

Additional GQL Query Parameters additional-gql-query-parameters

  • path: only search nodes below this path. If you specify more than one term with a path prefix, only the last one will be considered.
  • type: only return nodes of the given node types. This includes primary as well as mixin types. You may specify multiple comma separated node types. GQL will return nodes that are of any of the specified types.
  • order: order the result by the given properties. You may specify multiple comma separated property names. To order the result in descending order simply prefix the property name with a minus. E.g.: order:-name. Using a plus sign will return the result in ascending order, which is also the default.
  • limit: limits the number of results using an interval. E.g.: limit:10…20 Please note that the interval is zero based, start is inclusive and end is exclusive. You may also specify an open interval10… or limit:…20 If the dots are omitted and only one value is specified GQL will return at most this number of results. E.g. limit:10 (will return the first 10 results)

Exporting Content exporting-content

You may need to export content and make changes to it in an Excel spreadsheet. For example, you may want to export a mailing list and change the area code of all the listed phone numbers directly in Excel, add additional lines, and so on.

To export content:

  1. Search for content as described in Searching and Editing Content.

  2. Click Export to export the changes into a tab-separated Excel spreadsheet. AEM WCM asks you where you want to download the file.

    note note
    NOTE
    By default, changes are encoded in Windows-1252 (also known as CP-1252). You can check UTF-8 to export the changes in UTF-8.

    srchrsesultexport

  3. Select the location and confirm that you want to download the file.

  4. After you download the file, you can open it from your spreadsheet program, for example, Microsoft Excel. The spreadsheet program imports the file and converts it to a spreadsheet format.

    exportinexcel

Importing Content importing-content

By default the import functionality is hidden when you open the Bulk Editor. Simply adding the parameter hib=false to the URL will display the Import button on the Bulk Editor page. You can import content from any tab-separated ( .tsv) file. In order for importing to work properly, the column headings (first row of cells) must match the column headings of the table you are importing to.

NOTE
When you re-import content, you erase any previous content for those nodes. Be careful not to overwrite important information.

To import content:

  1. Open the Bulk Editor.

  2. Add ?hib=false to the URL, e.g.:

    http://localhost:4502/etc/importers/bulkeditor.html?hib=false

  3. Click Import.

  4. Select the .tsv file. The data are imported into the repository.

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