Released in version 5 on 19th of April, 2014 - see http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Deleting+and+archiving+member+and+contact+records

Released in version 5 on 19th of April, 2014 - see http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Deleting+and+archiving+member+and+contact+records#Deletingandarchivingmemberandcontactrecords-Archivingmultiplecontacts

After all, I split delete/archive and bulk update comments into two different threads. Current one is focus on archive/delete problem. Batch archive is added into 5.0 release (finally!).

Bulk update is available at http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825719-batch-update-of-contacts-or-members-12918

[quote user="Apricot Kernel"]

Just for information: in our next release we are going to provide a very simple way to batch-archive (not delete) any current visible set of contact records. Archiving contacts keeps all related records (e.g. financial documents, etc.) so you can easily "undo" if you need.

To completely delete all archived records, admin can use existing functions for that (there is special button in Account details screen for that)

[/quote]

I don't see either of these features. Have they been released yet?

~ Kim

Becky - thanks, understood.

Yes, you are correct. My request has two parts. For my needs, adding the search parameters for "last email opened" and "number of emails opened" is more critical than being able to bulk archive. Manually searching contacts to see how long ago and how many emails were opened (a sign of engagement with our organization) takes many steps and is very laborious.

Once the appropriate contact is identified, archiving the contact is much quicker.

We desperately need an easy and efficient way to:

1. Clean up our database by eliminating those who are not engaged, and to manage our subscription costs to WA.

2. Identify those who are the most engaged contacts so that we can better utilize their interest and turn those into paying members.

That is exactly what we need! The only time we would to bulk delete is when we are bulk archiving.

Thanks so much - this saves a LOT of hassle for us.

We will only have the bulk-archive function, not bulk-delete (we think its too dangerous) - but we already have a function to delete all archived records so you will be able to archive and delete them in two steps.

Yes, we have no problems doing a search for all to be archived. Will we be able to do a bulk delete also? Because we can already do a bulk archive by performing the search, then changing the Archived column to yes, and importing those files. The problem comes when finding them and going one by one to delete them.

Ok, so this has two parts 1) having appropriate search parameters 2) having the bulk archive or delete action Version 5.0 will have include a bulk action to archive all records in current selection - so we are getting a bit closer already.

Just for information: in our next release we are going to provide a very simple way to batch-archive (not delete) any current visible set of contact records. Archiving contacts keeps all related records (e.g. financial documents, etc.) so you can easily "undo" if you need.

To complete delete all archived records, admin can use existing functions for that (there is special button in Account details screen for that)

i'm new here

but,

I think a simple and effective and quick path would be to

allow bulk deletes

but

REQUIRE a backup first.

WA already has the backup feature, so, just force the backup before delete.

Good point about field validation - would appreciate if you could create a new thread on this and mention most common fields where this would help.

Now back to your original point, I am not clear how bulk-deleting records helps with field cleanup. 1) Deleting records would also delete their transactions, invoices etc.

2) A much better way is simple rename old field, import new clean field, check, delete old field.

Admittedly, bulk deletion of records isn't likely a common occurrence for most users as I'm sure it won't be a common occurrence for us. I can see however, how it would be very useful to make database-wide changes to field data and you don't appear to have any other way to do this on your site.

For example, since you appear to have very limited field validation (and this is another suggestion for adding advanced field validation while I'm thinking of it) many of the fields will contain garbage or messy data. Phone numbers for example may be entered by a member in a variety of ways and formats. If we want to clean this up our only option is to export the database, use advanced third-party "regular expression" search and replace programs, then import the clean database back into Wild Apricot.

Unfortunately, since you don't have field validation, it's only a matter of time before the database has inconsistent field data again. :-(

Thanks for the feedback.

The export/import process is just a workaround since we do not currently have bulk deletion process.

Could you share - what are the common situations when you need to bulk-delete records?

The process to delete bulk records is very poor, tedious, and error prone. The manual process of having to first export to a spreadsheet, then find the records you want to keep, manually mark the archive column in those fields to "no", save the spreadsheet, import the spreadsheet, then follow the multiple steps to importing a new database, which are counter-intuitive (since you really want to delete records, so it's not obvious why one has to re-import everything again) and then finally in the last step go to Settings>Account and Billing to press the "Delete All Contacts" button (which is again counter-intuitive because you do NOT want to delete all contacts), then finally select "archived only" from the radio button selections is rather absurd.

It should be just as easy to archive and delete bulk records as it is to archive and delete a single record. There should be almost no difference in procedure. There can be multiple safety checks when doing this to assure an admin doesn't do something they don't want to do by accident.

I have used export/import to bulk archive members. But there are some who are archived that we do not want to delete, so can't use this method to bulk delete them. So it will be nice to have the ability to do so online.

Usable way of bulk archive and delete of contacts is going to be part of very next release 4.4. But even now you can use export/import to batch archive contacts and then batch delete all archived contacts from Account Details page.

We decided to focus initially on batch deleting of contacts/members - this part has been already designed and now being estimated. There are chances this is going to be a part of our 4.4 release (2012 Q1)

Sorry for late reply - we still have no progress here. This requests is quite high in our queue but I cannot promise that we are going to release anything here in 2011.