Bulk Product Editor for OpenCart

Overview

Edit your whole catalogue in a fast, spreadsheet-style grid in the OpenCart admin. Change prices, specials, stock, status, model, SKU, weight, categories, manufacturer and option values right in the cells, then save them all at once. For bigger jobs, bulk actions change hundreds or thousands of products with a preview first. Every change goes into a change log that you can undo, and the filtered list exports to CSV.

• Inline editing: click a cell to select it, double-click or press Enter to edit, Tab and the arrow keys to move, paste a column from Excel or Google Sheets. Changed cells are highlighted until you save.
• Fields: name, model, SKU, price, special price, quantity, status, weight, categories, manufacturer, out-of-stock status and the quantity and price of every option value.
• Filters: name / model / SKU / ID search, category (with its subcategories, or products without a category), manufacturer, status, in or out of stock, out-of-stock status, active special, price range, quantity range and, on OpenCart 4, masters and variants. Sort by ID, name, model, price, quantity, status or weight.
• Bulk actions with preview: set, increase or decrease prices and weights by an amount or a percentage with rounding (to cents, whole numbers, .99, .95); set special prices for a customer group (fixed, % off or amount off the price) with start and end dates; remove specials; set status, manufacturer or stock status; adjust stock and option quantities; add to, remove from or move to categories; find and replace or add text in names, models and SKUs. The preview shows how many products change and the before and after values.
• Selected products or the whole filter: apply an action to the ticked products or to every product that matches the filter, even tens of thousands. Large actions run in short steps with a progress bar.
• Change log and undo: every save and bulk action is recorded with who, when and the old and new value of every cell. Undo restores the old values; a value changed again since then is kept.
• CSV export of the filtered or selected products (UTF-8, opens in Excel and Google Sheets).
• OpenCart 4 variants: a change to a master product reaches its variants unless the variant overrides that field, exactly like the product form.
• Safe: values are validated, a value someone else changed after you loaded the page is not overwritten, and only users with the "modify" permission for Catalog > Products can save.
• No core file changes and no OCMOD: OpenCart events only. OpenCart 4.0.2.0 – 4.1.x and 3.0.3.x – 3.0.5.x, one license for both.

Installation

Requirements

OpenCart 4

1. Extensions > Installer: upload kv_bulk_product_editor.ocmod.zip, then click Install next to it.
2. Extensions > Extensions, type Modules: find Bulk Product Editor and click Install (green +).
3. Click Edit, enter your license key and click Save.

OpenCart 3

1. Extensions > Installer: upload kv_bulk_product_editor-oc3.ocmod.zip.
2. Extensions > Modifications: click Refresh (the package contains no file patches; this only lists it).
3. Extensions > Extensions, type Modules: install Bulk Product Editor, then Edit, enter your license key and save.

After installing

• Catalog > Bulk product editor appears in the admin menu, right after Products.
• The administrator group that installed the extension gets access automatically. Other user groups need the permission for the extension (extension/kv_bulk_product_editor/module/kv_bulk_product_editor on OpenCart 4, extension/module/kv_bulk_product_editor on OpenCart 3) and for catalog/product: see Configuration.

Upgrading

OpenCart 4: Extensions > Installer, uninstall and delete the old package, upload and install the new one. OpenCart 3: upload the new package over the old one and refresh the modifications. Settings and the change log stay as long as you do not uninstall the module.

Uninstalling

Extensions > Extensions > Modules > Bulk Product Editor > Uninstall removes the events, the settings and the change log tables. Your products keep every change you made; only the undo history is gone.

Configuration

Open Extensions > Extensions > Modules > Bulk Product Editor > Edit.

Permissions

The grid follows OpenCart's user group permissions (System > Users > User Groups):

Users with access only see the grid read-only with a note.

License

Without a key the extension runs as a 14-day trial with every feature. After the trial, without a valid license, the grid, filters, CSV export, the change log and undo keep working; saving changes and starting new bulk actions are disabled until a license key is entered. Your products are never changed by the license check.

Usage

Open Catalog > Bulk product editor. The page has two tabs: Products (the grid) and Change log.

The grid

• Filters: search by name, model, SKU or product ID; category (including its subcategories; (no category) lists products without one); manufacturer ((none) for products without); status; stock (in stock = quantity above 0, out of stock = 0 or below); out-of-stock status; special (with or without an active special); price from / to; quantity from / to. On OpenCart 4 you can also show only master products or only variants. Click Filter; Reset clears the filters. The browser remembers your filters.
• Sorting: click a column title with arrows (ID, name, model, price, quantity, status, weight); click again to reverse.
• Paging: the grid loads one page at a time from the server (25 to 250 products), so it stays fast with any catalogue size.
• Columns: Columns shows or hides columns; your choice is remembered in your browser.
• The ID opens the product form in a new tab. On OpenCart 4, a small arrow under the ID (↳ 55) marks a variant of product 55.
• Texts (name) are edited in the admin language.

Inline editing

1. Click a cell to select it. Double-click it, press Enter or just start typing to edit.
2. Enter confirms and moves down, Tab confirms and moves right, Esc cancels.
3. Changed cells are highlighted. The bar shows Save N changes; Discard drops all unsaved changes; Ctrl+S saves too.

More keys: the arrow keys move between cells, Ctrl+Z drops the unsaved change of the selected cell.

Paste from a spreadsheet: select the first cell and press Ctrl+V. A column copied from Excel or Google Sheets fills the rows below; several columns fill the cells to the right. Status accepts Enabled / Disabled (or yes / no, 1 / 0); manufacturer and out-of-stock status accept the name; categories accept names or IDs separated by |.

Saving: each changed value is written and the grid shows what was really saved:

• the row flashes green: saved;
• a red cell with a tooltip: not accepted (for example text in a price cell). The change stays in the grid so you can correct it;
• changed by someone else: the value changed after the page was loaded (another user, an order, an import). It is not overwritten; the current value is shown. Enter your change again if you still want it.

After every save a message offers Undo.

Bulk actions

1. Tick products (the box in the header ticks the whole page; Select all N matching products then extends the choice to every product of the filter), or tick nothing to work on the whole filter.
2. Click Bulk action and choose:
   • Apply to: the selected products or all products matching the filter;
   • Field and Action:

1. Click Preview: you see how many products change, stay the same or are skipped, and the before and after value of the first 25.
2. Click Apply to N products. The action runs in steps with a progress bar and ends with a summary. Undo this change reverts it right away.

Add text at the start/end does nothing for products that already start or end with that text, so running it twice is safe.

Change log and undo

The Change log tab lists every save, bulk action and undo, newest first: number, date, user, the change, the number of products and values changed and the status. The newest change you can undo is marked last.

• Details shows the changed values: product, field, before and after (first 200).
• Undo restores the old values of that entry. A value that was changed again afterwards (by another save, an order, an import) is kept and counted. The undo is itself an entry, so you can undo the undo.
• Continue finishes a bulk action that was interrupted (for example by a closed browser tab).

CSV export

Export CSV downloads the ticked products, or all products of the filter when none are ticked, as a UTF-8 CSV file: ID, (OpenCart 4: master ID), name, model, SKU, price, special price, all specials, quantity, status, weight and unit, categories (names and IDs), manufacturer, out-of-stock status, number of option values and their total quantity, date modified. Large catalogues are written in chunks.

OpenCart 4 variants

OpenCart 4 copies most fields of a master product to its variants unless the variant overrides the field. The editor does the same:

• a change to a master (price, special, status, model, SKU, name, weight, categories, manufacturer, out-of-stock status) is copied to the variants that do not override that field; the copies are in the change log and are undone with it;
• quantity and options are never copied (core rule);
• changing a field directly on a variant marks it as overridden, exactly like ticking Override on the variant's form, so a later save of the master keeps the variant's value.

FAQ

Does it change OpenCart core files?

No. It uses OpenCart events only (the admin menu entry and the license check) and ships no OCMOD patches.

How large can my catalogue be?

The grid loads one page at a time from the server and bulk actions run in steps (200 products per step by default), so catalogues with tens of thousands of products work. In our tests a bulk change of 1,200 products takes a few seconds.

How are changes saved?

Only the edited column or rows are written (for example the price column, or the special rows of a product), then the product's date modified is updated and OpenCart's product cache is cleared, as the product form does. Other product data is not touched.

Do other extensions see the change?

The editor does not run OpenCart's full product save, so extensions that hook into the product form save (for example a feed that regenerates on save) are not triggered. Data that is read from the database at runtime (storefront, feeds, exports) sees the new values immediately.

What happens if two people edit the same product?

When you save, every value is compared with the value you loaded. If someone else changed it in the meantime, your change is not saved and the cell shows the current value with a note.

Can I undo a bulk action after a week?

Yes, as long as the change log entry is kept (90 days by default). Values that were changed again since then are kept, the others are restored.

Which special does the Special column show?

The special of the default customer group (System > Settings > Option) that is active today, otherwise its first one. Other customer groups' specials are kept and can be managed with the bulk action.

Are discounts (quantity discounts) changed?

No. Only specials. On OpenCart 4.1, where specials and discounts share one table, discount rows are left alone.

Can I edit descriptions or SEO fields?

Not in 1.0.0; name, model, SKU, prices, specials, stock, status, weight, categories, manufacturer, out-of-stock status and option values are covered.

Is my data safe if the license expires?

Yes. Without a license the grid, filters, export, change log and undo keep working; only saving and new bulk actions are disabled. Nothing is ever changed or removed by the license check.