Migrating from GeoDirectory

Using WP All Import to migrate your GeoDirectory listings to Spaces is a breeze. We’ve tried different ways of migrating GeoDirectory Places, and we think we’ve found the most efficient way, however you may find that other methods are quicker and easier to use. There are two steps, the first migrates the main information into each Space, the second pulls over the contact information.

Before you begin, please ensure you have made a backup of your database. we also strongly recommend you test the migration using a staging or development site.

First Steps

Before you begin, please ensure you have installed and activated Spaces. You will also need to create a dummy Space. This will ensure that every piece of metadata will be detected by WP All Import. This should include all contact information on the About Information page, under Settings. It doesn’t matter what data you add here, so feel free to enter, for instance, 12345 as a phone number and [email protected] as an email.

Creating Spaces in Bulk

First, download and install WP All Export from the plugins directory. It’s free, and very simple to use. On the New Export screen, select Specific Post Type, and select Places. These are your GeoDirectory Listings. Then click Migrate Places. You can leave all the advanced settings (unless you feel they might relate to your migration) and just click Confirm & Run Export. Once the export is complete, download and save the CSV file.

Now we need to use the export file to create our Spaces! We will be using WP All Import.

On the New Import screen under All Import, select Upload a file. Select the export file from the last step, and then choose New Items. Finally, fromt he dropdown list, select Spaces, as that is what we are about to create! Click Continue to Step 2. Click Continue to Step 3 (as we don’t need any filtering).

Now we need to map our fields to each other. This joins the dots between Places and Spaces. At this stage, it is worth watching the videos provided by WP All Import, to get a feel for how to do this.

1. Under Title & Content, drag the title to the top box, and the content to the editor.
2. Under Images, select Download images hosted elsewhere and drag imagefeatured to the box. make sure you have checked Set the first image to the Featured Image (_thumbnail_id)
3. Under Custom Fields, detect all custom fields. You have a choice to make here. Depending on the image you use for your GeoDirectory Listings, you can set the Space Avatar and Cover. Some images will suit either type better. We recommend setting the avatar, as this can then be used across other parts of the site, such as activity feeds and notifications. Depending on whether you are going to pull data into the avatar, cover or both, use the trash can symbol to remove all the other custom fields (we’ll be adding contact information later in this tutorial). Then simply drag the relevant image field into the Value box.
4. Under Taxonomies, Categories, Tags tick Space Categories. Select Each Space has multiple Space Categories (actually, only one category appears on Spaces, but we can still add them all). In the box, drag over placecategories. Lastly, change the Separated by character to the pipe symbol (|), as that is likely what you will be using. If the categories in the right-hand pane are separated differently, go ahead and change this.
5. Under Other Space Options, drag date to Post Dates (deleting the word ‘now‘, obviously). Drag slug to Post Slug, and drag authorid to Post Author.
6. Finally, click Continue to Step 4.

Auto-detect a Unique Identifier. Make sure that Create new spaces from records newly present in your file is ticked. The others aren’t relevant at this stage. Click Continue.

Check the Summary and lastly click Confirm & Run Import. You should now have a whole bunch of brand new Spaces.

Adding Contact Information

To map our custom fields, we will use the CSV generated by the GeoDirectory export function. Head to GeoDirectory, Settings, Import/Export and simply export your export your listings into a CSV file.

Next, create a New Import in WP All Import. Upload your GeoDirectory CSV file, and this time select Existing Items. Select Spaces from the dropdown. Continue until you are at the mapping screen (step 3). We need to make sure we are updating the correct Space, so drag post_title over to the Title box. You can ignore everything else, apart from Custom Fields. There, detect your fields again.

1. Under _about_phone, drag phone
2. Under _about_email, drag email
3. Under _about_website, drag website
4. Under _about_address, drag each address element, separated by a comma. Spaces uses Google to process addresses, so this will make sure that enough address information is given. If you are using the default GeoDirectory settings, it might look like this: {street[1]},{street2[1]},{city[1]},{region[1]},{country[1]},{zip[1]}
5. Use the trash can symbol to remove all other custom field items. This is especially important if you have set an avatar or cover, as we don’t want to overwrite them.
6. Click Continue to Step 4

On the next screen, make sure that you are using the title to match the records. If you have Spaces with duplicate titles, this may cause an issue, and you should make your Places and corresponding Space have a unique name, even temporarily. Tick Update existing spaces with the data in your file, and underneath, Choose which data to update. You should now ensure only Custom Fields is ticked, to make sure we don’t overwrite any existing data. Under the Custom Fields checkbox, select Update only these Custom Fields, leave the rest alone. This will make sure that your avatar and cover aren’t overwritten. Click Continue. Lastly, click Confirm & Run Import.

Now check your Spaces have the correct contact information. You might immediately see that some of the action buttons are now clickable. If so, congratulations! You have successfully migrated your Places.

Troubleshooting

I added the contact information, but now my avatar or cover image has gone back to the default

It is likely that you may have missed one of the checkboxes when you imported the contact information. but don’t worry! Follow the steps above to add the contact information again, but this time use the original WP All Import file. The only custom fields should be avatar, cover or both. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully, or you will overwrite all the other contact information!

Agh! None of this worked. I can’t migrate my Places!

While we found WP All Import, WP All Export and GeoDirectory easy to use, sometimes things don’t go to plan. Please get in touch with the authors of those plugins for further support. They are likely to get you an answer far quicker than we could, as they are experts in their own products.