How to add any field to Mass Update in SugarCRM / SuiteCRM

By default, SugarCRM / SuiteCRM allow to Mass Update only fields of Data Types:

• Checkbox
• Datetime
• Date
• DropDown
• Dynamic DropDown
• Integer
• Multiple Selection
• Radio

However I found an ​Upgrade-Safe​ method to add any field to Mass Update.

First of all, you need to know that for several fields you’ll not add them to Mass Update from ​Studio​, but this can be done only by code.

To do this you should insert a file in custom/Extension/modules/<modulename>/Ext/Vardefs with:

<?php
$dictionary['<modulename>']['fields']['<fieldname>']['massupdate'] = true;
?>

With a “Quick Repair and Rebuild“, this will activate Mass Update for that field, given that is of one of one of Data Type allowed.

If instead we want, for example, ​to activate Mass Update of a “TextArea” field​, we must create a custom versione of the file include/MassUpdate.php.

The classic customization with a copy of the file in the “custom” folder, in this case it does not works, but we can get it with a slightly more complicated process.

First of all we need to create a CustomMassUpdate.php file that we are able to place in custom/include/CustomMassUpdate.php.

Inside this file we write:

<?php
// Extension of class MassUpdate to allow MassUpdate of field of type TextArea

if (! defined('sugarEntry') || ! sugarEntry)
    die('Not A Valid Entry Point');

require_once('include/MassUpdate.php');

class CustomMassUpdate extends MassUpdate {

    /**
     * Override of this method to allow MassUpdate of field of type TextArea
     * @param string $displayname field label
     * @param string $field field name
     * @param bool $even even or odd
     * @return string html field data
     */
    protected function addDefault($displayname, $field, &$even) {
        if ($field["type"] == 'text') {
            $even = ! $even;
            $varname = $field["name"];
            $displayname = addslashes($displayname);
            $html = <<<EOQ
    <td scope="row" width="20%">$displayname</td>
    <td class="dataField" width="30%"><textarea name="$varname" style="width: 90%;" id="mass_{$varname}"></textarea></td>
EOQ;
            return $html;
        }
        else
            return '';
    }

}
?>

In a similar way we can manage other field types if we need to Mass Update them.

Now we need that our <modulename> uses our custom class instead of the standard one.

To do this we create a file custom/include/CustomListViewSmarty.php and we write:

<?php
// Extension of class ListViewSmarty to allow MassUpdate of field of type TextArea

if (! defined('sugarEntry') || ! sugarEntry)
    die('Not A Valid Entry Point');

require_once('include/ListView/ListViewSmarty.php');
require_once('custom/include/CustomMassUpdate.php');

class CustomListViewSmarty extends ListViewSmarty {

    /**
     * @return MassUpdate instance
     */
    protected function getMassUpdate() {
        return new CustomMassUpdate();
    }

}
?>

Now the last pass: we should use this class for Mass Update visualization.

Let’s got create a custom/modules/<modulename>/views/view.list.php file to extend the standard ViewList class (or it’s specific version for our module, if it’s present in modules/<modulename>/views/view.list.php) and we write:

<?php
// Extension of classe ListView to allow MassUpdate of field of type TextArea

if (! defined('sugarEntry') || ! sugarEntry)
    die('Not A Valid Entry Point');
require_once('custom/include/CustomListViewSmarty.php');
class <modulename>ViewList extends ViewList {
    function preDisplay() {
        $this->lv = new CustomListViewSmarty();
    }
}?>

With a “Quick Repair and Rebuild“, our code will start to work and our TextArea field will be added to Mass Update.

Note :

1. Here, <modulename> means the module name you see in the URL, for example, Contacts, Leads, Accounts, etc.
2. <fieldname> means anything as per your requirements

Hope you find this blog post helpful.

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Thank you.