Answers.Body: <ol>
  <li><p>Create a profile (Administer > Customize Data and Screens > Profiles) that includes the Contact field "Contact Subtype."</p></li>
  <li><p>Bring up your desired group of individuals (whether through a search, group listing, etc.).</p></li>
  <li><p>Select the appropriate individuals and use the "Batch Update via Profile" action.</p></li>
  <li><p>On the next screen, select your Profile that contains the "Contact Subtype" field and click Continue.</p></li>
  <li><p>On the Batch Update screen, select the Student subtype for the top individual, then click the Copy icon next to the column label "Contact Subtype."  That will copy the Student subtype selection all the way down the list. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Update Contacts".</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>You're all set!</p>
  
  <p>Note: the limit for Batch Update via Profile is 100 contacts, so if your number is greater than 100, you'll have to do Steps 3-5 multiple times.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-26T08:55:30.220Z
Answers.Text: Hi, beware that it's not going to work well if some of your contacts have already a subtype (it's going to replace it) at least it was the behaviour until recently, didn't test on the latest version
Answers.UserDisplayName: Xavier
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-26T22:26:51.163Z
Answers.Text: I'm running into an odd quirk. Some batches will allow this, but others will not display any thing in the box for sub-contact types. The box will display empty with zero-width. Any ideas what's causing this? [Working](http://i.imgur.com/zzyWAQk.png) and [Not Working](http://i.imgur.com/6p2P3E2.png)
Answers.UserDisplayName: Tomulent
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-27T14:47:49.220Z
Answers.Text: Re Xavier's comment about replacing the subtype: there's a 4.7 PR that fixed a very similar issue, so might be worth trying that: https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/pull/5799
Answers.UserDisplayName: Andrew West
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-05-26T06:54:25.400Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-05-26T06:54:25.400Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Allen Hutchison
Body: <p>I'm creating a new contact subtype, "Student", based on Individual. I've already got a bunch of individuals who I know are students, and I would like to quickly just convert them over to this new subtype.</p>
  
  <p>What would be a simple solution to this problem?</p>
  
Tags: <contacts>
Title: Easily switch group of contacts to a newly created contact subtype
ThreadText: # Easily switch group of contacts to a newly created contact subtype
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-26)
  
  I'm creating a new contact subtype, "Student", based on Individual. I've already got a bunch of individuals who I know are students, and I would like to quickly just convert them over to this new subtype.
  
  What would be a simple solution to this problem?
  
  **Tags:** contacts
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2015-05-26. Score: 8 | Accepted answer
  
  1. Create a profile (Administer > Customize Data and Screens > Profiles) that includes the Contact field "Contact Subtype."
  2. Bring up your desired group of individuals (whether through a search, group listing, etc.).
  3. Select the appropriate individuals and use the "Batch Update via Profile" action.
  4. On the next screen, select your Profile that contains the "Contact Subtype" field and click Continue.
  5. On the Batch Update screen, select the Student subtype for the top individual, then click the Copy icon next to the column label "Contact Subtype." That will copy the Student subtype selection all the way down the list. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Update Contacts".
  
  You're all set!
  
  Note: the limit for Batch Update via Profile is 100 contacts, so if your number is greater than 100, you'll have to do Steps 3-5 multiple times.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: Hi, beware that it's not going to work well if some of your contacts have already a subtype (it's going to replace it) at least it was the behaviour until recently, didn't test on the latest version  
  > **username_0**: I'm running into an odd quirk. Some batches will allow this, but others will not display any thing in the box for sub-contact types. The box will display empty with zero-width. Any ideas what's causing this? [Working](http://i.imgur.com/zzyWAQk.png) and [Not Working](http://i.imgur.com/6p2P3E2.png)  
  > **username_3**: Re username_2's comment about replacing the subtype: there's a 4.7 PR that fixed a very similar issue, so might be worth trying that: https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/pull/5799  
  
  ---
  
  