Bulk changes

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Settings → Bulk changes

Clearing many cells at once, or deleting many records, can destroy a lot of work with one key press. This page decides how careful that has to be.

Two separate things:

  • whether pasting into or clearing several cells asks you to confirm
  • who may clear more than one cell, or delete more than one record, at a time

Owners and admins set this for the firm, and can override it for one person. Everybody sees a For you section.

Copying and pasting is never blocked. Only the confirmation applies to it.

What counts as bulk

Action Asks first Can be blocked
Editing, pasting into or clearing one cell no no
Pasting values into more than one cell yes, unless you turned the question off no
Pasting blank cells over more than one filled cell yes, unless turned off yes — it empties them, so it counts as clearing
Clearing more than one cell with Delete or Backspace yes, unless turned off yes
Delete selected on more than one record always yes
Delete selected on one record always no
Undoing your own paste or clear no no

Two useful details:

  • Unticking several checkboxes is not clearing. An unticked box still holds a value.
  • On a list, Remove from list is never blocked, because it takes records off the list without deleting them. Clearing several cells on a list can be.

When you are blocked

Nothing changes, and a message says so — Nothing was cleared, Nothing was pasted or Nothing was deleted — explaining that your firm only allows owners and admins to do this.

Do them one at a time instead, or ask an owner or admin.

What to set

The confirmation is worth leaving on for most people. It costs a key press and prevents the paste that silently blanked forty cells.

The restriction is the bigger decision. Blocking bulk clearing and deleting for analysts is a reasonable default in a firm where the CRM is the system of record — the cost is some friction during data cleanup, and the benefit is that an accidental multi-row delete cannot happen at all.

The per-person override exists so you can lift it temporarily for whoever is doing a tidy-up, rather than loosening it for everybody permanently.

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Bulk changes · Deeluge docs