How to design batch adding in a web application?

Question

I'm creating a web application with batch adding and batch editting function. Could anyone suggest an interface on how this will go about?

Im using PHP as the server side language. I am creating an admin tool and I would like to batch add users with their details like name, address, telephone number, age, birthday, address, country, city. I would like to add at least 10 users at the same time on the same page. I'm thinking of creating something like the wamp server's interface when inserting rows at the database but I think it will be too cluttered for at least 10 user details at the same time. Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Ok, so the first question to ask is: why is it important to add these users simultaneously, rather than one at a time? Can you be certain that your user will already have every account's details prepared? Depending on the situation, you may still need a mechanism for users not to upload everyone all at once, or at least save a group before completing them.

Are you adding all the users at the same time because there's some kind of relationship between them? That could influence the interface, too. Without knowing more, it's almost impossible to say what sort of design you should deploy.

In any case, broadly speaking, web users aren't familiar with spreadsheet-like editable tables. It isn't a common pattern. What is common for, though, is to handle multiple entities with multiple form divs - each form 'box' representing a account. Consider the following:

One of the advantages of this pattern is that you can use vertical order to signify hierarchy and relationships between the accounts you're adding (assuming there is one). You can also use animation to suggest action - eg entries 'flying off' to the right as they get submitted to the database.

Without knowing more about your product, though, I'm not sure I can really say much else.

Answer 2

If one person has to do all the work adding account, it's a pain in the arse. So offload it to the individual users.

Have a single large field into which any number of email addresses can be added - using spaces to determine break between entries. This in return fires off an email invite to each of the recipients with a link for them to each set up their own account. In the list of 'people for the admin interface - those who have not yet completed their account will be listed by email address only with some for of 'invited' status, and a 'resend invite' link. Admin can still edit each account by hand if necessary.

Answer 3

I would use a table with each row being a user. I would start it off with 10 rows with the option to add more rows. The idea is with this the user can tab to fields without too much mouse interaction

add more rows options

| Name | Telephone | Age | Birthday | Address | Country |

Add users button

Could you work out the users birthday from the DOB? then they'll be one less field to input

Answer 4

Oracle's BLAF guidelines have detailed batch processing patterns that may fit your scenario. (http://download.oracle.com/tech/blaf/specs/batchdetail_template.html) I find this library very useful for design exemplars for transactional flows.