CSV import – problem with Excerpt field and Event Website field

[Sally Richardson]

I think there might be a bug in the CSV import. This has been happening for a while but it has only just come to light in a cohesive way!
If my import settings are set to preserve local changes, everything works fine apart from the event website field. It seems that the upload ignores that field (I have triple checked my csv file).

I tried to get around it in the short term by using the delete and replace option in the import settings. Unfortunately, although this setting allows the Concerts webpage to be updated correctly via the csv upload, the Concert Excerpt field does not work.

I will share a csv file privately in a moment to help you test this.
Might you be able to have a look at this? Many thanks.

[Sally Richardson]

This reply is private.

[Andras]

Hi Sally,

Thanks for reaching out!

Sorry to hear about this.

To make sure I fully understand your issue, could you please give me more details?

preserve local changes, everything works fine apart from the event website field

In this case:

• What happens to the event website field? Does it get deleted? Does it get updated?
• What would you expect to happen to the event website field?

delete and replace option in the import settings

Which option are you referring to exactly? I haven’t been able to find this.

the Concerts webpage to be updated correctly via the csv upload, the Concert Excerpt field does not work.

What do you mean when you say “the Concert Excerpt field does not work”?

• What happens to that field?
• What would you expect to happen to that field?

Thanks for clarifying! Looking forward to helping you get this fixed.

Cheers,
Andras

 

[Sally Richardson]

Thanks Andras.

1. If my import settings are set to preserve local changes:

An event already has a certain event website entered in the event website field. The event website changes, so there is a new value in the next CSV upload containing that event. Afterwards, the event on the website still has the original value in that field – it has not been updated by the csv upload – nor the original value deleted. I would expect the new url to be added to the event website field by the CSV upload.

2 1. If my import settings are set to Overwrite my event with any changes from the original source (sorry not to have used correct name previously!):

Exactly as in point 1 above, but this time it is the Concert Excerpt field (excerpt field/box on event record in admin) does not get updated by the CSV upload.

Many thanks

[Andras]

Hello Sally,

Thank you very much for the clarification. This helped me a lot in trying to recreate the described behavior.

I did get the same results as you did, I can confirm these are two bugs in the plugin. Thanks for reporting them to us.

I have ticketed both issues and added your voice to them. Our developers will take a look at them and get it fixed. I need to ask for your patience.

I am going to set the status of this ticket to “pending fix” and we will update it once the fix is released.

If you have any new questions or issues please create a new ticket and we’ll help you out.

Thanks and cheers,
Andras

[Sally Richardson]

Thank you very much

Best wishes,
Sally

[Andras]

Sure thing Sally. We’ll be in touch.

A.

[Sally Richardson]

Hi – just checking in on whether you have an idea of how long it might be before these two problems are fixed? Thanks!

[Andras]

Hi Sally,

Thanks for the ping!

I checked the status of the bugtickets. There hasn’t been any progress on them, sorry. There is no date set for them yet, so this is likely not going to happen in October.

I just pinged the team about this to get a feel for it. I will get back to you as soon as I get an answer. Please hang in there.

Cheers,
Andras

[Sally Richardson]

Dear András,

Thank you. It feels like quite a major bug to me so I am hoping it won’t take too much longer! Thanks for nudging it along!
At the same time, might the developers look at how concerts with a time added are treated? If you create a concert without a time, and then later update if via CSV with all of the same details but with a start time added, a duplicate event is added. I assume this is a bug too? Or maybe it can’t tell it is the same event? If so is there any way around this?
Incidentally, duplicate events are of course a nightmare because even if you delete them, you still have to go into all the other sites which receive a feed from this main site to delete the original event there too!

Thanks for your help.

[Andras]

Hi Sally,

With CSV imports the way we determine if an event is the same is by looking at the title and that start date/time of the event. If these are the same, then it is considered the same event, and other data is updated.

If the title OR the start date/time is different (e.g. was missing before, not it has a value), then it is considered a different event, thus a duplicate is created. It is done this way to have a repeating event with the same title imported.

So this is not a bug, it is the intended behavior.

We are working on an enhancement that will allow you to define a unique ID for an event and that will be the base of comparison, instead of the title and the date. I do hope we can get this feature working together with the others.

Cheers,
Andras

[Sally Richardson]

“We are working on an enhancement that will allow you to define a unique ID for an event” – is excellent news! That would be so good, and I already have a unique reference for each event (although at the moment I put this into a Pro added field). To get all this working at the same time will save me hours of work each week which I currently spend fixing problems. Fantastic support as ever!

[Andras]

Thanks for the kind words!

I’ll keep you posted here with progress. And if you get restless 🙂 feel free to ping me.

Cheers,

Andras

[Sally Richardson]

Hi – any progress on this?

[Barry]

Hi Sally,

You recently reached out via our new Help Desk and, as that is where we are now focusing our support efforts, I will reply to you there and close this topic to avoid confusion/avoid duplicate discussion (though, we’ll still post an update in here once the attached bug reports are resolved).

Thanks!

[Author]

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