In this example, you've had a rules change: AED trainings now are valid for two years instead of one. So you're going to take all of the AED certifications for which a volunteer received training in 2008 and add 365 days to the expiration date.
From the User tools panel click on Bulk update/create tools and then Bulk value updater.
Select the Items to update and whether they're to be updated or deleted. In this case, select Certificationsand Update records.
Enter the Source criteria to determine the records to be affected. These criteria will vary depending on the type of object selected. For this example, select "AED" as the Certification type, then (add) a filter requiring a Date of last training between 1/1/2008 and 12/31/2008.
On the right side, add one or more fields to be updated, along with the rules for their new values. In this case, click (add field to be changed) to add 365 days to the Expiration date, and set the Comments to a value reflecting this so you know later on what you did.
Click Get items to update. VSys will find all of the records which meet your criteria, and show them to you on screen.
Verify that your criteria brought the expected results, then select which of these should be updated. Use the All/None/Reverse tools on the right-click menu to do this in bulk. Items which aren't checked won't be updated.
Test this process by checking Test mode, then click Run. This will run the updater, show you what was changed, but not actually save any changes.
If all is well, un-check Test mode then click the Run button again. VSys will prompt you one last time with the count of records to be updated, and after confirming this, it will start the update process.
When done, VSys will show you a report of all of the records which were changed, along with the values, both original and new.
Use the Load/savesettings link on the left navigation bar to save the current settings (both criteria and new values) for later use, or to re-use previously saved settings.