Sometimes we need to enable our users to clone their records instead of creating new ones from scratch (huge time saver). Let’s imagine a system where users have many accounts.

# app/models/user.rb
class User
  has_many :accounts
end
# app/models/account.rb
class Account
  belongs_to :user
  field :name
end

Clone one record

ActiveRecord and Mongoid have clone method which we can wrap like this.

# app/models/account.rb
def clone_record
  new_record = self.clone
  new_record.name = "#{name} CLONE"
  new_record.created_at = Time.now
  new_record.updated_at = Time.now
  ...
  new_record.save!
  return new_record  
end

We can add more logic to clone_record to ensure uniqueness or transform data as needed. For basic CRUD UI I like using RailsAdmin. We can create custom action to call clone_record method.

# config/initializers/rails_admin.rb
module RailsAdmin
  module Config
    module Actions
      class Clone < RailsAdmin::Config::Actions::Base
        RailsAdmin::Config::Actions.register(self)
        register_instance_option :member do true end
        register_instance_option :only do [Account] end
        register_instance_option :link_icon do 'fa fa-clone' end
        register_instance_option :http_methods do [:get, :post] end
        register_instance_option :controller do
          proc do
            if request.post?
              new_obj = @object.clone_record
              flash[:notice] = "Cloned #{@object.name}."
              redirect_to show_path(id: new_obj.id)
            end
          end
        end
      end
    end
  end
end
RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.actions do
    dashboard
    ...
    clone
  end
end
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
  admin:
    actions:
      clone:
        title: 'Clone title'
        menu: 'Clone menu'
        breadcrumb: 'Clone breadcrumb'
# app/views/rails_admin/main/clone.html.erb
<h3><%= "Are you sure you want to clone '#{@object.name}'" %></h3>
<%= link_to 'Clone', clone_path, method: 'post', class: "btn btn-danger" %>
<%= link_to 'Cancel', show_path, class: "btn" %>

Making GET request will load the clone page where user can confirm or cancel the action. This can be extended to cloning other records in the system. Just create clone_record method in the respective classes and add class name to register_instance_option :only do ....

Clone multiple records

We also might want to clone multiple records at a time. RailsAdmin supports bulk actions such as bulk_delete.

# config/initializers/rails_admin.rb
module RailsAdmin
  module Config
    module Actions
      class BulkClone < RailsAdmin::Config::Actions::Base
        RailsAdmin::Config::Actions.register(self)
        register_instance_option :collection do true end
        register_instance_option :bulkable? do true end          
        register_instance_option :only do [Account] end
        register_instance_option :http_methods do [:post, :get] end
        register_instance_option :controller do
          proc do
            if request.post?
              # loads the preview page
              @objects = list_entries(@model_config, :post)
              render @action.template_name
            elsif request.get?
              @objects = list_entries(@model_config, :get)
              @objects.each do |object|
                object.clone_record
              end
              flash[:success] = "#{@model_config.label} successfully cloned."
              redirect_to back_or_index
            end
          end
        end
      end
      ...
    end
  end
end
RailsAdmin.config do |config|
  config.actions do
    dashboard
    ...
    clone
    bulk_clone
  end
end
# config/locales/en.yml
...
# app/views/rails_admin/main/bulk_clone.html.erb
...

The differences from before are register_instance_option :collection do true end and register_instance_option :bulkable? do true end. Also there is bulk_clone UI page.

You can configure UI labels following this pattern. And here is bulk_delete template. Big thanks to this post for guidance on how to do custom bulk actions.