Thread: Import data directly into database? and other pre sales questions.

Import data directly into database? and other pre sales questions.

Hello,


I have an existing website I would like to move over to Vantage, it has 10,000 users, 6000 listings with 3000 reviews for those listings. It looks like your current CSV tool is kind of limited in it's ability. Can I import my listings and reviews directly into the database instead of using a csv? Or maybe programmatically via an import API?


I will be adding some custom fields to the review and listings, will this affect the import process, how do you store the custom fields in the database? Are they separate database columns, or are all the fields stored in some sort of object (xml, json, etc) and then stored in a blog field in the database?


Do you support adding users/reviews and listings all at once as part of the import process?


Do you allow the customization of category pages? For example I want to have a category for each state in the US. So I would like to have the category page for each state, have it's own info, image etc. Is this possible?


Does Vantage create search engine sitemap files automatically?


Thanks,
Ken

Hi Ken,

The current fields which can be imported into Vantage via the built in .csv importer are: Title, description, author, date, slug, status, address, phone, facebook, twitter, website, listing category, listing tag, latitude, longitude (attachments). So yes, in terms of also importing rating data, this is currently not something you can do via the importing tool by default. The alternative to this would likely involve some knowledge of mysql admin, so yes, it could be done via the database side. I will enquire about how custom fields are stored in the database and will update the thread once I can confirm this.

There is no encryption which would prevent you from customizing the category pages. You may find the AppThemes developer center for information about customizing our themes. Sitemaps are not generated automatically, but there are plugins which can do this. Thanks.

Hi kencochrane,

Here is a rundown of how things are stored in the database:

Listings are a custom post_type, and the meta associated with listing are all custom fields (aka postmeta). So as for an API, you can directly use the standard WordPress API like wp_insert_post(), update_post_meta() and wp_set_object_terms() passing the appropriate post_type paramater.

Reviews are a custom comment_type likewise, you can use the standard WordPress API like wp_insert_comment() passing the appropriate comment_type paramater. There is an internal function for taking care of associating the rating with a review, va_set_rating().

Additionally, you can browse the AppThemes developer docs and source code to see internal functions used to take care of common tasks.

@pepsi has pretty much explained everything else very well, but please let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks