Bulk Operations

Efficiently edit or delete multiple records at once with atomic transactions and persistent selection.

Basic Setup

Enable bulk editing and/or deletion:

class BookCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Book
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"

    # Required for bulk operations
    use_htmx = True
    use_modal = True

    # Enable bulk edit for specific fields
    bulk_fields = ['title', 'author', 'published_date', 'bestseller']

    # Enable bulk delete
    bulk_delete = True

Requirements

Bulk operations require both use_htmx = True and use_modal = True.

Selecting More Than 1000 Records

If you anticipate users selecting >= 1000 records at a time for bulk processing, you need to explicitly set the DATA_UPLOAD_MAX_NUMBER_FIELDS in settings.py. The default for this setting as per the Django docs is 1000.

For example: DATA_UPLOAD_MAX_NUMBER_FIELDS = 10000

Currently, if the the selected records exceeds the default setting, there is no error displayed on the front end (only in the server logs) and from the user's perspective they will get a misleading message saying "No items selected for bulk edit"

How It Works

• Selection: Checkboxes appear next to each record
• Persistence: Selected rows survive pagination and page reloads
• Atomic Operations: All changes applied together or none at all
• Modal Interface: Bulk edit form opens in a modal dialog
• Validation: By default, full_clean() runs on each object before saving
• Save Process: save() is always called on every object after validation

Field Types Supported

All Django field types work with bulk operations:

• Basic fields: CharField, DateField, BooleanField, IntegerField, etc.
• Foreign keys: Dropdown selection with sorting support
• Many-to-many: Multiple selection with replace/add/remove actions
• OneToOne: Single selection dropdown

Configuration Options

Validation Control

By default, bulk operations will call the full_clean() and save() method for every selected object. You can override to skip the full_clean() step.

class BookCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Book
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"
    bulk_fields = ['title', 'author']

    # Skip full_clean() for better performance (default: True)
    bulk_full_clean = False

Dropdown Sorting

class BookCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Book
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"
    bulk_fields = ['author', 'publisher']

    dropdown_sort_options = {
        'author': 'name',        # Sort authors by name (ascending)
        'publisher': '-name',    # Sort publishers by name (descending)
    }

Customization & Overrides

Restricting Dropdown Choices

Override get_bulk_choices_for_field() to limit foreign key options:

class BookCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Book
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"
    bulk_fields = ['author', 'publisher']

    def get_bulk_choices_for_field(self, field_name, field):
        """Restrict foreign key choices for bulk edit dropdown."""
        if field_name == 'author' and hasattr(field, "related_model"):
            # Only show active authors
            return field.related_model.objects.filter(is_active=True)

        return super().get_bulk_choices_for_field(field_name, field)

Selection Key Customization

Customize how selections are stored:

def get_bulk_selection_key_suffix(self):
    """Add custom constraints to selection persistence."""
    # Example: separate selections by user
    return f"user_{self.request.user.id}"

Error Handling

All bulk operations are atomic - either all records are updated/deleted or none are. When validation fails, the form displays errors and allows correction while preserving selections.

Examples

Basic SetupAdvanced Configuration

class BookCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Book
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"

    # Required for bulk operations
    use_htmx = True
    use_modal = True

    # Enable bulk operations
    bulk_fields = ['title', 'published_date', 'bestseller', 'author', 'genres']
    bulk_delete = True

    # Sort dropdown options
    dropdown_sort_options = {
        'author': 'name',
        'genres': '-name',
    }

class ProjectCRUDView(PowerCRUDMixin, CRUDView):
    model = models.Project
    base_template_path = "core/base.html"

    use_htmx = True
    use_modal = True

    # Bulk operations
    bulk_fields = ['status', 'priority', 'assigned_to', 'due_date', 'tags']
    bulk_delete = True
    bulk_full_clean = False  # Performance optimization

    # Custom dropdown sorting
    dropdown_sort_options = {
        'assigned_to': 'last_name',
        'tags': 'name',
    }

    def get_bulk_choices_for_field(self, field_name, field):
        """Restrict choices based on user permissions."""
        if field_name == 'assigned_to':
            # Only show team members user can assign to
            return field.related_model.objects.filter(
                teams__members=self.request.user
            ).distinct()

        return super().get_bulk_choices_for_field(field_name, field)

    def get_bulk_selection_key_suffix(self):
        """Separate selections by team."""
        return f"team_{self.request.user.current_team.id}"