Mass Update of the CMDB

Apart from being able to filter the configuration item views, configuration managers are now also able to perform mass updates of the CI records. This is a powerful new feature that makes it much easier to maintain a clean configuration management database (CMDB).

To perform a bulk update, a configuration manager can filter a view so that only the CIs that need to be updated remain visible. If not all of the remaining CIs need to be edited, the configuration manager can hold down the Ctrl key (or the Command key on macOS) and click on the ones that require an update. Holding down the Shift key allows a whole section of the view to be selected.

Once the CIs have been selected, the configuration manager can click on the 3 small dots in the header of the view and select the ‘Edit Selected…’ option.
This opens a form in which the updates that need to be made can be specified. To indicate that a field needs to be emptied in the selected CIs, simply check the box in front of this field and leave it empty.

After pressing the Save button, the updates are performed in the background. As soon as they have been completed, the configuration manager receives a notification.
Clicking on the notification downloads a log that can be reviewed to see if any errors
occurred during the mass update.