Globally Updating Records

To update records with Global Update, you must be assigned permission 184 (Globally update headings). To remove records from a review file with Global Update, you must be assigned permission 18 (Create lists of records). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

Global Update and Rapid Update both enable you to make multiple edits simultaneously. However, Global Update is more powerful. It enables more types of edits and can change records of different types simultaneously. Using Global Update incorrectly can make far-reaching, unintended changes in your organization's database. You might want to consider this when authorizing staff for the Global Update and Rapid Update functions.

Purpose

Use Global Update to:

search for records containing a specified
- record type
- field group tag
- MARC tag
- subfield
- word or string in a subfield
make multiple edits simultaneously to retrieved records.

With Global Update you can:

edit records of more than one type simultaneously.
find and replace tags or subfield indicators.
change the value of fixed-length fields.
insert new variable-length fields.
find and replace data within variable-length fields and subfields.
add to the beginning or end of variable-length fields.
copy variable-length fields.
delete variable-length fields and subfields.
change the value of special fields.
delete duplicate fields.
copy MARC fields to non-MARC fields and vice versa.
remove a record (or records) from a review file.

You can modify fields and subfields in a single record or in multiple records simultaneously.

Please note that Global Update does not enable you to update all records at once. Updating all records at once could result in serious performance issues for your system. Use review files to control the size of batches you process.

Process

To use Global Update:

Choose records to update.
Build a list of commands - a list of edits or deletions to make in the retrieved records.
Preview the changes and process the commands.

No Undo

There is no undo menu option for Global Update. If you process commands by mistake, immediately refer to the procedure Undoing a Global Update. Using Global Update incorrectly can make far-reaching, unintended changes in your organization's database. Consider using Rapid Update whenever your edits allow it.

Additional Features

You can apply the list of commands to as many individual records or record sets as you want. Global Update preserves the list of commands while you perform another search for records.

You can exempt individual records returned by the search from global updating. When you process the list of commands, only records that are not exempt change.

You can view or print a report of the changes made.

Settings Options

If you selected the Create Review File of Busy Records in the Global Update tab of Admin | Settings, Global Update creates a review file of busy records. (Applies only to order and invoice records.) The file appears in the Review Files tab of Create Lists.

See Global Update Settings for information on changing the settings options for this function.

Global Update Example

For a step-by-step example of using Global Update, see the Sample Global Update.