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Creating a custom bulk edit screen

Salesforce gives you some native bulk edit capabilities right out of the box. Excluding imports and Data Loader options, it’s generally something like selecting a checkbox next to records in a list view and performing a mass delete or the like. But let’s say you have a requirement to give users the ability to enter in some data for records as they might do in a typical spreadsheet environment. You can use Visualforce to construct a fairly simple interface for this.

In this example we have two custom objects with a Master-Detail relationship: the parent, Channel_Partner_QTR_Finance_c, and the child, Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru_c. Here’s our custom controller for the page.

public class BulkWeeklyEdit {
    List<Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c> weeklies;
    Id theCPQF;
// class constructor 
    public SMART_BulkWeeklyEdit() {
        theCPQF = ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('id');
        weeklies = getWeeklies();
    }
// get all the children for this Channel_Partner_QTR_Finance_c record 
    public List<Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c> getWeeklies() {
        if( weeklies == null ) {
            List<Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c> cpweeks =
                     new List<Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c>();
// a cool short cut where you can actually combine the iteration with the query 
            for ( Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c week : [
                    SELECT Name, Weighting_Factor__c, Gross_Sellthru_FCST__c,
                        Contra_FCST__c, Net_Sellthru_FCST__c, Week_Start_Date__c, Week_End_Date__c
                    FROM Channel_Partner_Week_Sellthru__c
                    WHERE CPQF_ID__r.Id = :theCPQF  ] ) {
                cpweeks.add( week );
             }
            return cpweeks;
        } else {
            return weeklies;
        }
    }
// the Save button's method.  This will update both the parent and children records.
    public PageReference saveWeeklies() {
        update weeklies;
        Channel_Partner_QTR_Finance__c cpqfToUpdate =
            new Channel_Partner_QTR_Finance__c( Id = theCPQF );
        update cpqfToUpdate;
        return new PageReference('/' + theCPQF);
    }
}

Ok, so now let’s build our bulk edit user interface:

<!-- Tie to our custom controller and use our custom parent's object style -->
<apex:page controller="BulkWeeklyEdit" tabstyle="Channel_Partner_QTR_Finance__c">

<apex:form id="theForm">
  <apex:pageBlock title="Weekly Forecasting and Performance Data" mode="edit">

<!-- our Save button tied to our Save method -->
            <apex:pageBlockButtons >
                <apex:commandButton action="{!saveWeeklies}" value="Save"/>
            </apex:pageBlockButtons>

<!--
     Here we create a table using the Visualforce tag <apex:pageBlockTable>
     {!weeklies} calls "getWeeklies" method in our controller.
     Note: the word "get" in accessor methods is implicit in Visualforce.
     We're also assigning a name variable of "currentWeekly" for each accessed record.
     The IDs need to be present to perform the updates but we can keep them
     invisible to our user through rendered="false"
-->
            <apex:pageBlockTable value="{!weeklies}" var="currentWeekly" id="theRepeat">
              <apex:outputText rendered="false">{!currentWeekly.CPQF_ID__r.Id}</apex:outputText>
              <apex:outputText rendered="false">{!currentWeekly.CPQF_ID__c}</apex:outputText>

<!--
     We create our columns, along with headers, for our user worksheet
     Depending on whether or not we want to allow the user to edit a field, we use
     the inputField or outputField tags.
-->
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Name</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.name}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column width="80px"><apex:facet name="header">Weight</apex:facet>
                    <apex:inputField value="{!currentWeekly.Weighting_Factor__c}" style="width:80px"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Gross Sellthru FCST</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.Gross_Sellthru_FCST__c}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Contra FCST</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.Contra_FCST__c}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Net Sellthru FCST</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.Net_Sellthru_FCST__c}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">Start Date</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.Week_Start_Date__c}"/>
                </apex:column>
                <apex:column ><apex:facet name="header">End Date</apex:facet>
                    <apex:outputField value="{!currentWeekly.Week_End_Date__c}"/>
                </apex:column>

            </apex:pageBlockTable>
  </apex:pageBlock>
</apex:form>
</apex:page>