How do I mass update multi-select field to add new selection while preserving the old selection?

💬 General Discussion
1

We use a multi-select field, Industry. Some contacts have more than one industry.

We have prepared a target list for a campaign. We’d like to mark all these as having, say, Industry: Automobiles. But a few contacts already have an industry selected, say, Adhesives.

How do we mass update everyone in the target list to add Automobiles while preserving the original selection, Adhesives, for the ones that have it?

thanks,

2

Sorry for my ignorance, but does the Mass update currently work for multi-select fields? I mean, in the sense that it let’s you at least replace the values with new ones?

I know you want more than this, you want to be able to add without replacing, but I am asking you if the replacing is currently a functionality in SuiteCRM?

3

Yes, you can replace one or more values by selecting multiple items in the drop down list. To select multiple values on the Mac, hold the alt/option key while clicking on the desired item. As far as I can tell, whatever you select completely replaces the existing selections.

I was hoping someone had a clever way to work around that and add the new selections to the existing ones.

4

I’d like to test this and find out where it’s happening in the code.

Do you know where I can find a multi-select field like that on the core modules? Without having to go in Studio to create one.

5

I think that Role is in the core module for contacts. We’ve been using Sugar since 2013, so I’m not absolutely sure what is original.

6

This would need code customization.

Would it be acceptable to you to change the behavior always, so that it always adds the selection to the records being mass updated, never replaces the selection? If so, the change could be easier, just find the place in the code where it happens, and try to tweak to SQL.