Bulk Combine creates combined items across multiple axes and grids, reducing repetitive work and maintaining consistency. Users can select elements, find matching structures, save combinations, and later update, relabel, delete, or convert them to constructions. The feature is currently undergoing testing and requires a personalization key.

Project Owner
Creator
Explorer

Coming Soon

This feature is not available in Harmoni. It it undergoing user acceptance testing and will be available once all tests are finalized.

1. What is Bulk Combine?

Bulk Combine is useful for creating nets, top-boxes, bottom-boxes, or other grouped scale responses. It lets you create the same combined item across multiple axes and grids. Rather than manually creating the same combined item again and again, you can define the combination once and apply it to other axes or grids that share a similar structure.

Bulk Combine helps to:

Reduce repetitive manual work
Identify axes and grids with the same element structure
Maintain consistent reporting structures and labels across axes and grids

To access bulk combine, you need to have the personalization key enabled. To get access, reach out to support@infotools.com.

2. Create Bulk Combine Items

Once enabled, Explorers, non-owning Creators, or Project Owners can create bulk combined items. The bulk combine panel opens after selecting two or more items and clicking bulk combine from the design menu, in the construct section.

To create bulk combine items:

Select two or more elements in an axis or grid in the project tree
From the design menu, choose bulk combine
The Bulk Combine Editor opens
Enter a name in the Label text box
Drag in or click FIND to add the axes or grids where you want the same combination applied
Click SAVE to create the combined items

You can also click bulk combine from the design menu without selecting any elements, and then drag in the elements you want to combine.

In edit mode, select two of more items to combine
In the design menu, select bulk combine
Enter the element label name
Add any axes to which the new combined element should be applied
Click SAVE

3. Bulk Combine Editor

The bulk combine editor is the interface where you define a new bulk combine element. The Bulk Combine editor includes:

Bulk Combine Editor.png

Label: Enter a name for the new combined item. After entering a label, the Save button becomes available. Once created, the same label is used across all linked combined items created by the bulk combine action.

Select Elements: Displays the elements included in the combined item.

Apply to the following: Shows all axes and grids currently included in the bulk combine.
Click FIND to add axes or grids with one or more matching element. Alternatively, drag in items with similar elements.

Remove Items: Select All, Partial or No Matches to remove these items.

Sort By: Sort the list of items by Exact, Partial and No Match.

SAVE: Creates the combined item across all selected axes and grids.

CANCEL: Closes the combine items panel and discards any information.

Adjust Selected Elements

When you select two or more elements and click bulk combine, the bulk combine editor populates the Select Elements box with the selected elements.

With the bulk combine editor open you can also drag and drop to add more elements.

Next to each element or axis, you can click the delete icon to remove it from the list.

Two elements display in the Select Elements box
Apply to the following shows the axis the elements are from
Drag additional elements to Select Elements
Click the bin icon to remove them
Click SAVE to create the bulk combined item
Click CANCEL to exit

3. Find Matching Axes and Grids

When you first select elements to combine, only the axis associated with the elements is added to the Apply to the following box. To create combined items in bulk, you must add additional axes or grids into the Apply to the following list.

You can also use the FIND option to have Harmoni find axes or grids with similar elements in the project tree. After Harmoni updates the list, you can assess the items and delete any you do not wish to include.

Harmoni identifies full, partial or no match using color coded text.

To find items with matching or similar elements when using bulk combine, you can:

Click FIND to populate the list with all axes and grids with one or more matching element.
Alternatively, drag in the axes or grids with similar elemets.
Click on an axis or grid name to see the elements displayed in Selected Elements. The font coloring in Selected Elements indicates whether the item is a match.
Delete a single item or use Remove Items based on full, partial, or no match.
Use the Sort By drop-down to sort elements by full, partial or no match.

Identify Matching Items

Harmoni identifies items that match (and don't match) by color coding the text. Note the coloring only impacts the text and is not related to the icon coloring.

Exact Matches: Items show in grey text.
Partial Matches: Axes and Grids shown in blue text - some of the elements match.
No Matches: Items that do not match display with red text.

Color coding displays in two locations:

The axes and grids in the Apply to the following list are colour coded (as described above). When you select each item in this list, the elements display in the Selected Elements list.
Each individual element in the Selected Elements list can only match or not match, so you only see the colors grey (match) or red (no match).

In the following example, a Top 2 Box is being created. The original axis selected includes two elements: 10 Extremely Likely and 9. When comparing one of the 'found' axes, Overall Satisfaction, which shows a partial match, you can see that one of the elements, 10 Extremely Satisfied, is not a match and so this displays in red. For the purpose of creating a Top 2 Box, this element can be included and is left in the Apply to the following list.

H3_BulkCombine_findItems_with_matching_element.autosave.gif

Click FIND to see similar answers
Select an axis and review the elements

Remove Items - All, Partial Match or No Match

After populating the list of similar items, you can assess and delete items individually using the delete icon, or you can remove multiple items at once. Three options are available for multiple deletions

All - Delete all items in the list
Partial - Delete all items that are partially matched (blue font)
No Matches - Delete all items that do not match any items (red font)

Click the delete button to remove items individually
Use the Remove items options to delete all, partial, or no matches
Click FIND to populate the list again
Click SAVE to create bulk combined items

Sort By

Once all matching axes and grids are found, they are sorted by their position in the project tree. You can use the Sort By drop-down menu to sort items by exact, partial or no match, making it easier for you to review everything in the list.

H3_BulkCombine_SortByMatches.autosave.gif

Select an option in Sort by to sort the list of items

4. Save Bulk Combine Items

After reviewing all axes or grids to be included, click SAVE to create the combined items across your project. You also have the option to CANCEL to exit the action.

The newly created combined elements have a different icon from a combined element that was created individually. A filter icon is also available in the project tree filters.

Icon	Type
	Axis: Individually Combined Element
	Grid: Individually Combined Element
	Axis or Grid: Bulk Combined Element
	Project Tree Filter: Bulk Combined Element

Click the bulk combine project filter to view only the items created using bulk combine.

BulkCombine-element and project filter.png

In this example, two Top 2 Boxes are added using bulk combine. Using the project tree filter, you can shrink the project tree to see the bulk combine elements.

Click CANCEL to exit the bulk combined editor
Click SAVE to create bulk combined items
Bulk combined items display an icon
Use the project filters to find all bulk combined items

5. Update Bulk Combine Items

Once you have created bulk combine items, you can edit items and resave your changes. You can:

Add axes or grids to the bulk combined group
Relabel bulk combine items
Delete bulk combine items

When you relabel or delete bulk combine items, you can make changes to the entire group or to the selected item only.

Add Axes or Grids to Bulk Combine Items

To update bulk combined items:

Select an element created using bulk combine
Click bulk combine or Library/Editor to open the editor
Use FIND or drag in new axes/grids
Click UPDATE

Use project filters to view bulk combine items
Select an item and click bulk combine
Click FIND to see matches, then review and remove unwanted items
Click UPDATE to add items to the bulk combine group

Relabel Bulk Combine Items

Relabeling a bulk combine item is the same process as making a change to any label in the project tree.

Select a bulk combine element and either double click or press F2 to place the label in edit mode.
Type the new label and press Enter.
A pop-up warns that these items are shared across multiple axes or grid elements.
You can apply changes to all, only the selected item, or you can cancel the action.

Relabel All: Updates all labels created in this bulk combine group.
Only Selected: Permanently separates the selected item from the bulk combined group and applies changes to the single element, changing the element icon to a standard combined element. The remaining bulk combine elements remain unchanged. If further changes are made to the bulk combine group, this selected element is not included.

Relabel a bulk combine item
A warning appears with options: Relabel All, Only Selected, or Cancel
Select Only Selected to update the selected item
The icon changes to the standard combined element
Relabel another bulk combine item
Relabel All does not update items detached from the bulk

Delete Bulk Combine Items

You can deleted bulk combine items by selecting the element and clicking delete from the design menu. When deleting items in a bulk combined group, a pop-up warns that these items are shared across multiple axes or grid elements. You can apply changes to all, only selected items, or cancel.

Delete All: Deletes all bulk combined items as a group.
Only Selected: Deletes only the selected item, keeping the rest unchanged.

Select a bulk combine item
Click delete
A warning appears with options: Delete All, Only Selected, or Cancel
Delete Only Selected removes the chosen item
Delete All removes all bulk combine items

When changes are made to only the selected item, the item is detached and no longer belongs to the bulk combine group. Future changes to the bulk combine group do not affect the detached element.

Convert Bulk Combined Element to a Construction

If you select an element created using bulk combine, you can convert it to construction. A pop-up warns that converting combined items will detach the axis from the group and so it will not benefit from bulk combine updates. Once converted to a construction, the element's icon updates and you can view the definition as a standard construction in the expression editor. This allows you to build more complex definitions.

🔗 Learn more about converting a combined axis to construction.

Where to from here?

Learn more about Harmoni:

Create Multiple Nets with Bulk Combine - Coming Soon

In this article

1. What is Bulk Combine?

2. Create Bulk Combine Items