Bulk Edit Custom Tables on WordPress Admin Dashboard

In this tutorial, we will show you how to bulk edit custom tables on the WordPress admin dashboard.

As you may know, WordPress uses the MySQL database management system to store and manage your website’s data. A database holds information in tables, where each table has rows and columns containing specific data. This way, you have a table for posts data, a table for comments data, a table for users data, and so on.

In addition to the “standard” tables of your WordPress site, there are plugins that add custom database tables to store and manage your information. For example, a forms plugin will create custom tables in the database to store forms, form entries, etc.

However, many of these custom database tables are inaccessible from the WordPress admin panel (wp-admin dashboard), so you cannot see or edit the data stored in those custom tables, unless you view the databases with MySQL.

Fortunately, the WP Sheet Editor – Custom Database Tables plugin allows you to view any custom database on the WordPress admin dashboard.

Not only can you view custom database tables added by WordPress plugins in the admin dashboard, but you can edit fields and columns of custom databases right from the WordPress wp-admin dashboard.

Let’s see some things you can do with the WP Sheet Editor – Custom Database Tables plugin.

1- View custom database tables in wp-admin

Tip → To find out which plugins in the WordPress repository create custom database tables, you can go to https://wpdirectory.net/ and search for CREATE TABLE.

To generate a spreadsheet for your custom database tables, go to WP Sheet Editor → Setup spreadsheet.

Once there, select the custom database table for which you want to generate the spreadsheet.

WP Sheet Editor will automatically detect custom database tables added by plugins like WP Forms, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, and thousands more.

In this example, we will use the WooCommerce order coupon lookup table, but you could use any other custom table.

You can select which columns you want to view in the spreadsheet and finally click on Save.

This is what your custom database tables will look like on the wp-admin dashboard.

2- Search for custom table data using any column as search filter

With WP Sheet Editor – Custom Database Tables, you can easily search for specific entries in your databases.

This plugin contains an advanced Search tool that you can use to:

• Use any column from your custom database tables as a search filter
• Perform advanced searches by combining two or more search filters to narrow down your results further

To open the tool, just click on Search.

In this example, we will search for all the orders where a discount coupon was applied, and whose discount amount is equal to or higher than $20.

For this, we need to select the Discount amount field, the => operator, and enter the amount.

Finally, we need to click on Run search.

After filtering your custom table, you will see the search results displayed in the spreadsheet.

You will also see the search filters you have applied just above the spreadsheet.

3- Edit custom database tables easily

In addition to viewing the custom tables in the WordPress dashboard, you will be able to edit the values of your custom database tables in a quick and easy way.

Just edit all the cells you want and finally click “Save”.

If you want, you can autocomplete data downwards, as you would do in Excel or Google Sheets.

4- Advanced bulk editor for custom database tables

If you have lots of rows, even rows that are not displayed in the spreadsheet, and you want to apply a bulk change to your custom database table, you can easily do it using the advanced bulk editor that comes with WP Sheet Editor. This way, you don’t have to run complicated scripts to bulk update your custom database tables.

WP Sheet Editor allows you to edit all rows, only the rows of a specific search, or the rows you manually select in the spreadsheet.

You need to start by opening the Bulk Edit tool.

WP Sheet Editor’s bulk editor allows you to make several types of changes that will save you a lot of time when editing your custom database tables:

• Set value – Replace an existing value with a new value.
• Replace – Replace specific values.
• Clear value – Clear values and empty cells.
• Append – Append values after the existing value.
• Prepend – Add values before the existing value.
• Capitalize words
• Generate excerpt – Generate excerpts automatically.
• Remove everything after some text
• Remove everything before some text
• Copy from other columns
• Set random value
• Custom formula – You can run custom formulas in your custom database tables.
• PHP Function

As you can see, the possibilities for bulk updating custom database tables added by other WordPress plugins are unlimited.

Below, we show you the values you should select if you want to, for example, delete hundreds of rows from your database in bulk:

To bulk edit custom database table rows, you need to select these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update. You can bulk update all your custom database table rows, all rows from a specific search, or all manually selected rows.
• What field do you want to edit. You need to select which custom database table column you want to bulk update. In this example, we will select the Status column.
• Select type of edit. In this example, we will select the Set value type of edit.
• After that, you need to enter the values, depending on the type of edit you have selected (set value, replace, custom formula, etc.).
• Once you have selected the values you want to bulk apply to your custom database table, you need to click on Execute now.

You can use this advanced bulk editor to:

• Edit large amounts of data in your custom database tables.
• Replace values in thousands of entries in your custom database tables.
• Run advanced formulas in your custom database tables.

5- Export custom database tables on wp-admin

WP Sheet Editor allows you to export custom database tables to a CSV file for editing values in Excel, Google Sheets, or any other CSV file editor.

You can download custom database tables as CSV files with just a few clicks.

Start by opening the Export tool.

To export your custom tables to CSV file, you need to:

1. Select the database table columns you want to export
2. Select the database rows you want to export
3. Select the CSV editor you will use to open the downloaded file (Microsoft Office, Google Sheets, etc.)

Once you’re done, you need to click on Start new export, and a CSV file containing your custom database table data will be downloaded to your computer.

Below, you can see a preview of our custom database table exported to Excel.

6- Import custom database tables on wp-admin

You can edit data in your custom database tables using Excel, Google Sheets or another CSV file editor, and then you can import from the CSV to your custom database table.

You need to start by opening the Import tool.

Now you need to select the CSV file containing your custom table data in order to import into WordPress:

• Source: CSV file from my computer
• Click on Choose File and select the CSV
• Click on Next.

Next, you need to select the columns you want to import.

You can Import all the columns or Select individual columns to import.

You also need to select how you will import the data.

In this example, we will Update existing items and ignore new items because we’re updating our custom database table from a CSV file.

Finally, you need to click on Start import and you’ll start importing custom database table data from the CSV into WordPress.

7- Export and import custom database tables with Google Sheets

We have prepared a tutorial where you can learn how to export and import custom database tables with Google Sheets.

Read tutorial

Bulk edit custom database tables!

As we have shown you in this tutorial, WP Sheet Editor allows you to view and manage custom database tables on the WordPress admin dashboard.

Viewing and managing custom tables in wp-admin can save you lots of hours. You can generate a spreadsheet for every custom database table created by WordPress plugins, use any database column as search filter, export and import custom database tables using CSV files.