Site Building

Using VBO to Load a List of Objects into Rules for Drupal 7

This page is archived

We're keeping this page up as a courtesy to folks who may need to refer to old instructions. We don't plan to update this page.

Alternate resources

Rules guide (Drupal.org)

Sprout Video

This screencast shows the awesome functionality of loading entity lists into Rules with help of VBO. As an example, a rule is set up that, once a day, removes any stick front page content that is older than one week. To do similar cools stuff yourself, the following steps may be useful:

  • You need a view that lists the entities you want to work on in Rules. Note that you don’t need a display of the view – and it might even be better not to have one if you don’t want the view to be displayed somewhere.
  • However, you need one bulk operations field. The type of bulk operations field determines what entity type will be sent to Rules. Note that you don’t need any actions enabled for the field – it is enough that it is present.
  • You need a rule that, as an action, loads entities from a VBO. (This is available under the “Views bulk operations” group.) All view displayes with at least one VBO field will be selectable.
  • The action provides a list of entities, that can be used just like other lists in Rules. Combine with loops, actions and Rules Scheduler to make awesomeness happen.

Additional resources

Rules guide (Drupal.org)

Legacy Site Building