Manage selected cases with bulk actions

Updated Wednesday, October 28, 2026 ·

Bulk actions let a support team coordinate related work across several cases. They are useful when a customer onboarding project needs a new team, duplicate reports describe the same incident, or resolved cases are ready for closure. Review the selection and the action’s effect before submitting it.

At a glance

For: agents, queue leads, and supervisors. Applies to: Supportbench Core.

Start here: Cases → select cases → Bulk actions

Prepare the selection · Choose the action that fits · Run and verify the operation · Decide whether to merge or link · Review a small selection before scaling up · Resolve common problems

Prepare the selection

Open Cases and choose the appropriate queue or saved view.
Filter the list, then check company, contact, subject, current owner and state for the records you intend to change.
Select the intended rows and review the selected-case count. Do not assume every record in a broad view should receive the same action.
Confirm your available action. Role permissions and access to each case are checked when the operation runs.

Choose the action that fits

Action	Useful situation	Check before confirming
Transfer	Move onboarding or specialist work to another owner or queue.	Confirm the destination and the receiving team’s context.
Merge	Combine genuine duplicate reports.	Identify the destination case. Related incidents with different commitments may need separate histories.
Trash	Remove inappropriate records from active work.	Review every selected case and your organization’s recovery process.
Set Status	Apply an appropriate status to the selected work.	Use the separate Close action when the intent is bulk closure.
Respond	Prepare a response for selected cases.	Review recipients and personalize case-specific details before sending.
Bulk forward	Forward selected cases as separate emails.	Review the preview, content and recipients. This is not one combined email.
Link	Associate related cases that should remain separate.	Keep distinct owners, evidence and commitments where they matter.
Close	Close resolved cases together.	Confirm required follow-up is complete and bulk-close permission is available.

Run and verify the operation

Choose the action from Bulk actions and complete its destination, selection or confirmation step.
For Merge, recheck which case remains the destination. For Bulk forward, review the preview before starting.
Read the result. Bulk forward reports progress and per-case outcomes; a successful start does not establish that every email was sent.
Inspect changed cases. Confirm the owner, status, history or relationship matches your intent.
For partial failures, identify the failed records and correct their cause before retrying those records. Avoid repeating successful sends.

Bulk close has its own action

Use Close for bulk closure. The status dialog directs you to that action; Set Status is not a substitute. If Close is unavailable, ask an administrator to review bulk-close permission.

Decide whether to merge or link

Example: several contacts report an outage

Two contacts may describe the same service outage, but one case may also track a separate recovery obligation. Merge only after comparing the issue and the required follow-up. Link the records when each needs its own history or commitment. A shared company alone does not establish that cases are duplicates.

Review a small selection before scaling up

Suppose three reports concern a customer’s planned maintenance, but one also tracks a separate recovery obligation. Begin by filtering the working list and reading those cases. Similar subjects do not establish that they should receive the same action.

Select the intended rows and inspect the selected count. Compare company, contact and current state for each. Remove the separate recovery case if the proposed action does not apply to it.
Choose the action that matches the goal. Transfer changes responsibility; Link preserves separate records; Merge consolidates genuine duplicates; a response or forward communicates content.
If forwarding, inspect the available preview and recipients. Remember that Bulk forward sends separate emails for the selected cases, rather than one combined message.
After submitting, inspect per-case outcomes where shown and open representative changed cases. If only some sends failed, identify those records before retrying.
Record any operational handoff needed by the receiving team. A bulk transfer without context can move the queue while leaving the work unclear.

Use a small, understood selection for a new process and verify the effect before applying it widely. Not every action has a simple reversal, and repeating a successful send can confuse customers. For an uncertain outcome, inspect the records instead of assuming that an error means nothing happened.

Resolve common problems

Problem	Correction
An action is missing or denied	Check your role and access to the selected cases; operations can have separate permissions.
The selection contains an unrelated case	Remove it before confirmation. If the change already completed, inspect that case and use the permitted correction process.
Some forwarded emails failed	Use per-case results to identify failures, then check recipients and content before retrying.
The case is still open after Set Status	Use Close when the intended operation is bulk closure.
A merge would lose useful separation	Keep the records separate and use Link.

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