Making a bulk change to User Account Passwords

4 posts by 2 authors in: Forums > CMS Builder
Last Post: February 1, 2017 (RSS)

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By csdesign - January 29, 2017

Hello! Is it possible to make a bulk edit to 40 user accounts at once and change their passwords? We are not using the membership plugin. They have all be entered individually by hand. We have CSV Export but no CSV Import. Is that the only way to do it?

Thanks! Tina

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By ross - January 31, 2017

Hi Tina

You can bulk change accounts if you like.

Updating user passwords isn't something I've ever done though.

Could you give me more details about why this needs to be done? Maybe there are some other options :).

In terms of how to do it, I think using the CSV Export and CSV Import tools will make the process easier for you because that way you get a nice CSV to work with and can open it in something like Excell.

Another option using built-in features of CMS Builder (ie: no plugins required), would be to look at the Database Backup and Restore option.

What you can do is create a backup of your account table, open that file up, modify the passwords, then use the Database Restore option.

Keep in mind that a database backup file, while all plain text, isn't designed to be read by humans so it will be more work to find where the passwords are.

I think the CSV plugin options will be better over all for you but that does mean you'll need to purchase another plugin.

Does that all make sense?

Let me know any questions.

Thanks!

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By csdesign - January 31, 2017

Hi Ross, Thanks for the reply!

MORE DETAILS:

The client has 2 annual sales. One for horses, one for mules. I setup a number of generic user accounts for each sale. When the consigners contact the client to get their animal added, she provides them with a preset username/password to log in. Each user account is set to expire on a designated date so they can't edit their consignment animal listing after a certain date. Each user account is also set to edit by section with "author/viewer" privileges and if they have more than one consignment, the client edits the max record from "1" to the number they have.

The website membership plugin just seems overkill to accomplish this so I've been doing them manually.

For the next year's sale, we just went through the user accounts manually one-by-one and changed the passwords since the consigners can be entirely new from year to year.

I was just curious if there is a better way to do this. At this point, each year, I spend about 2 hours editing less than 100 passwords and resetting expiration dates for each of the generic user accounts. I'm okay with the process but thought I might be able to save the client some money.

Thanks! Tina

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By ross - February 1, 2017

Hi Tina

Thanks for the additional details.

I think the CSV import/export option will be the best route for you. That will let you see all your data in columns and make bulk editing much easier.

Keep in mind that date fields like the one for "expiration" can take some extra work because you need to get the right format.

Once you get it though, it should be easy to just copy and paste into all the fields.

As always, make lots of backups to your data before attempting any of this.

Let me know any other questions.