The first step to batch updating the status for a set of volunteer opportunities and occurrences, is building the report to get us the necessary information to update the record.

For this example, we will create a new Report

Go to Reports and click on the Create New Custom Report button

Once you are able to edit the report, make the following changes:

1) Add filter  Volunteer Opportunity: Organization Served Name equals Art in Texas

2) Show:  All Occurrences

3) Date Field: End Date & Time

4) Range: All Time

5) Columns to Add

               Volunteer Opportunity: Record ID

               Occurrence ID (Salesforce.com ID field)

               Status  (since we are updating both the Volunteer Opportunity and the Occurrences to the same status you only                    

                              need to select one of the status fields to bring into the report)

6) Since it can be challenging to decipher the Salesforce.com IDs, you can add additional columns such as Volunteer Opportunity Name to help you in managing the data.   If you need to filter or sort the data, you can also include the Occurrence: Occurrence ID field (OC-######).

Once all the columns you need are in place, click on Run Report and then Export as .csv

Open the Exported table and save a copy as a back-up of the data.

Then make the necessary changes to the fields you wish to update.

Excel for Windows Tip:  If you are update all the cells in a single column you can make the change in the top cell of that column and then click on that cell and drag down to highlight the remaining cells in that column.  Once the cells are all highlighted, select Edit- Fill Down (keyboard shortcut:  Ctrl +D).

At the bottom of the report, there is a footer, make sure to Delete these five rows from your table prior to importing the data.

Once all the changes have been made, Save the file in a location where you can find it for the import.

Now that the table has the updated information, we can proceed with the batch import to update the records.

We can only update one record at a time so we will start with the Occurrences.

To start go to Setup/ Admin Setup/ Data Management/ Import Custom Objects

Then click on Start Import Wizard

The import wizard will open up in a new window.

Note: Select Salesforce.com ID for the ID associated with the primary record you are updating.  In this case Occurrence: ID is the column that gets mapped to the Salesforce.com ID.  

Once the Import has completed, make sure to go back to the Occurrences and check to make sure that they were updated properly.

After the Occurrences have been updated we can then update the Volunteer Opportunities using the same steps as above with a few modifications.

Since the data table we used at the start was designed to have a row for each occurrence, the result is multiple rows for each Volunteer Opportunity.   While Salesforce.com can handle the presence of a few duplicates in the table, the preferred action it to remove the duplicates prior to updating the Volunteer Opportunities.

If you included the Volunteer Opportunity Name in your original table, you can use that column to remove the duplicates.  You can also opt to create a new custom report that just has the volunteer opportunities.

Excel for Windows Tip: Highlight all the columns in the table and select Remove Duplicates under the data menu.  It'll ask you to select which column to search for duplicates, when it finds a duplicate, it'll remove the entire row leaving only the first instance of that value.

Once you've removed the duplicates, you can proceed with the steps for the Import Custom Objects Wizard.