bulk actions

Circulation staff frequently need to update the status and inventory data for large volumes of physical items—during weeding projects, annual inventory, processing large returns, or correcting item records. In WMS Circulation, these tasks often require item-by-item scanning and updates or reliance on complex workarounds. The current approach is time-intensive, click-heavy, and prone to mistakes, particularly when hundreds or thousands of items must be processed quickly.

The lack of a guided bulk workflow also makes it difficult to validate barcode lists upfront, identify ineligible or incorrect items before committing changes, and maintain a clear audit trail of what actions were taken and by whom. This creates operational inefficiency and inconsistent outcomes across staff and libraries.

A bulk item management experience is needed to support uploading or pasting barcode lists (including temporary items), selecting common circulation actions (Withdraw, Mark Missing, Inventory, Check In), reviewing and resolving errors prior to processing, executing the batch job with visible progress, and exporting results—along with a retained history of saved lists and completed bulk actions.

From the left-side navigation, staff open the new Bulk Uploads section to start a bulk action workflow. The landing page is designed around the first decision point: how to provide item barcodes.

Two input options are available:

• Upload a file — supports the common library workflow of preparing barcode lists in Excel/CSV worksheets and uploading them for processing.
• Manual entry — allows barcodes to be pasted or entered directly on the page for staff who prefer to build lists in the interface.

After a file is uploaded, the list appears in a grid below and can be selected to continue, or the user can hit the continue button. This grid also serves as a central hub for previously created lists, making it easy to resume work without recreating inputs. Each list includes Last edited and Last completed metadata to indicate whether it is still in progress (draft) or already processed.

After uploading or selecting a list, staff are taken to a list detail page where the upload can be reviewed before any action is run. The list name is editable, making it easy to label work in a way that matches local workflows (for example, by project, date, or location).

The uploaded items appear in a data grid that separates clean records from problem records using two tabs: Success and Errors. A summary area above the grid provides at-a-glance visibility into how many items are ready versus blocked, along with key context like the last edit and last action taken on the list.

This page also supports ongoing list management in one place. Additional barcodes can be added, the list can be re-uploaded to correct or replace the file, and the current list can be downloaded for offline review. Staff can save the list to continue later, or delete it entirely if it’s no longer needed.

Once the list has been reviewed and any errors have been addressed, staff continue to the action selection screen. This step focuses on choosing what should happen to the items in the list, based on the task at hand. Available bulk actions include Withdraw items, Mark items as missing, Inventory items, and Check in items. Selecting an action defines the workflow that will be applied to the entire list in the next step.

After an action is selected, the bulk job runs and generates a results report when processing is complete. The report header clearly identifies which action was performed and includes the list name, making it easy to recognize the context of the job at a glance.

A summary bar above the data grid highlights overall outcomes, including the number of successful updates and errors. Any barcode that fails processing is flagged directly in the grid, along with a clear explanation of why it failed so the issue can be corrected and reprocessed if needed.

From the results screen, staff can download the report, run another action (returning to the bulk action selection step), or return to the main Bulk Uploads screen.