In some cases, you may want to apply a specific rule or edit to a group of products that can be identified in a specific way. For example, changing your price for a particular brand. Or making sure that a specific brand isn't listed to a channel. There are also some preexisting bulk actions too. Zentail has the tools to run these processes on a one-time basis as a bulk action or on a regular cadence as an automation rule.
Important: this is an extremely powerful feature that creates bulk changes in to catalog. Make sure you're comfortable with filters and understand the expected results of a bulk action before running one.
How to get to Bulk Actions and Automation Rules
This page can be accessed in two places:
In the Main Menu click on Catalog and select "Automation" from the drop-down.
From the "Create Bulk Action" button on Quick Edit (top right). Note that this method keeps the filters you're using in your Quick Edit view.
Creating a Bulk Action or Business Rule
There are a few steps to creating a bulk action.
1. Give the action a name
2. Add filters
It is best recommended to filter by using QuickEdit and adding the necessary columns you need
3. Add an action - more on this below
4. Run the action!
Here's a quick video walkthrough. In this example, we'll create a bulk action to change Adidas pricing on our Shopify store to be 4% more than our item price.
Add an Action
To add an action, you can use the teal plus button at the bottom of the screen. That will open up a window where you can select the the attribute you want to set, and the value you want to set it to. This equation can include references to current fields.
The "Select Field" and "Insert Field Name" buttons are helpful to search for the attributes you want to set and build your equations off of. Currently, these equations can set a text field to a string value, such as "Large Red Shirt", or perform basic math functions like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Note: Entering a number outside of an equation, a string, or true/false will require quotes. For example, in the image above, the To Value is written as "Size", which is required in order for the Bulk Action to work.
Note: to make a value blank, leave the "To Value" blank and simply check off the "Clear out existing value" box below.
Types of Actions
A bulk action or automation rule can accomplish a variety of things, and the type of action you want to take may be different depending on what you're trying to accomplish. When creating an action you're able to select an "Action Type". Below is a brief description of what each type is used for.
Set Value - this is used to set an attribute to value, such as setting Item Price to 2.5 * cost.
Remove from Product Group - this will remove a product from the group that it is currently in.
Delete/Archive on Channel - currently for Facebook, Walmart DSV, and Walmart only, this will archive the SKUs on those channels.
Pull Data - this can be used to run an import of your data for specific SKUs (as opposed to your entire catalog, based on how you create your filter).
Update and Push to Channel - similar to the above but in the other direction, this allows you to force an update from Zentail to a channel for specific SKUs (as opposed to your entire catalog, based on how you create your filter).
Undo SKU Merge - this will separate SKUs that were merged together. More on unmerging SKUs
Unkit - separate SKUs that are in a component of a Kit. More on Kit SKUs
Predefined Bulk Actions
Some bulk actions are already built into Zentail. Please consult your onboarding specialist before running any of these bulk actions.
Create an Automation Rule
If you want this bulk action to run on a regular basis you can schedule it by checking off the box to "Schedule this Bulk Action". For more information on scheduling and automation rule, check out this help article.
Run History
You can use the run history to see the progress of a bulk action, or see a description of the action and affected fields. These links can also take you directly to a quick edit view where you can see the results. It is located under Actions section and selecting the black circle with the letter "i".
