Events Import (recurring)

[center4aging]

Greetings!

We have many events that are recurring. We are using “Events Import” for one-time events and would like to know how we can import recurring events. Any example will be: Movie Night every Tuesday in 2017 and 2018 with the exception of 11/23, 12/24, 12/25, 1/1/18.

How do we import recurring events using the same CSV?

Thank you.
Mely

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Mely,

Thanks so much for reaching out!

Unfortunately at this time, there isn’t really a way to import recurring events via a CSV in that manner.

You do have the option to Schedule Imports, although this isn’t the same as importing recurring events via a One-Time Import.

You are welcome to try out a third-party plugin, such as WP All Import (premium version), which should be able to help you achieve the results that you are looking for.

In the meantime, please vote on this idea in our feature requests, as we often implement ideas based on our customer feedback:

https://tribe.uservoice.com/forums/195723-feature-ideas?query=csv%20recurring%20imports

Please let me know if you have any other questions on this topic!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Thanx Jamie.

So this other plugin you recommend … are you saying that we can tell the CSV file something like this?

The first line is the fields in your event plugin;
The second line is the data for one time events;
The third line is the data for recurring events.

Venue, Event, Start Date, End Date, Recurs, Exception Date(s)
Senior Center A, 12/25/17, 12/25,17,,,
Senior Center A, 11,27/17, 01/01/18, Mondays, 01/01/18

Also what import do I use – Modern Tribes or this third party that you recommend?

A little confused but basically there is a lot to crate in the recurring events data. We like the robustness of your UI, but weighing options of “what/who?” creates these recurring events. As a nonprofit, funds are limited 🙁

Mely

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Mely,

First of all, we do have a NonProfit Partnership Program, if you are interested.  You can apply for free licenses to Events Calendar PRO or Events Ticket Plus, although it would not come with the ability to post in our premium support forums.  You can apply here:

https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/do-you-offer-discounts-for-nonprofit-organizations/

I am not entirely familiar with the third-party plugin that I recommended, however I was just recommending it based on the functionality that you are looking for (importing recurring events).  It looks like you can create a demo site with them to test it out:

http://www.wpallimport.com/try/

You can decide what features are important to you moving forward.  If you have any other questions about Event Aggregator, please let me know!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Hi Jaime,

Our developer says that many fields could be mapped *but* for the specifications of recurring event fields, the third party couldn’t map to those fields – i.e. the recurring pattern specifying fields, exceptions dates, etc.

I know this is very “out there’ but is it even possible that Modern Tribe engineer & Wp ALL Import engineer have a quick talk as they say they can work with most plugins? It may be a quick switch our developers need to flip so WP All Import plugin sees all Modern Tribe plugin fields & map perfectly? I know I may be using language that doesn’t make sense.

If we can figure that out then we can purchase the pro version of the WP All Import and will alleviate a lot of headache of having to manually go in & update the imported events into recurring events …

Thanx.
Tak

[center4aging]

Hi Jamie,

So from LaToya I understand that Modern Tribe can’t reach out to WP All Talk. Unfortunate but it’s okay & I will try to talk from both sides of my mouth.

So I’m not quite sure what the lingo is in the WordPress world but in the old developer days I used the word “API” when trying to “talk” to functions – whether internal or external to ower container.

So assuming that is similar idea of exposing one’s fields/functions/etc. in the WordPress world, is other plugins like WP All Talk able to see the fields that make the Modern Tribe’s plugin work – i.e. more specifically should the WP All Talk be able to “see” these import destinations specific to setting up recurring events? The fields that are populated when one goes manually through wp-admin portal that is …

If I know that one “should” then I can take that info to WP All Talk and se if they’ll play ball and help me. Your quick reponse will be appreciated …

Tak

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Tak,

I apologize for the delayed response.  You may be interested in exploring our REST API, which you can also share with the other plugin you are talking to, in order to see if what you are looking for is possible:

• https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/introduction-events-calendar-rest-api/
• https://theeventscalendar.com/the-events-calendar-wordpress-rest-api/

If this functionality is a requirement for your intended project, I’d suggest that a third-party developer would be the best way to make this feature happen on a short timeline. ? We maintain a list of developers who work with our plugins on our Knowledgebase here:

https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/find-a-customizer/

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions along the way!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Thanx Jamie.

Can I be lazy and ask you this: are the fields to import into to set an event as recurring exposed through that API?

Frankly, I’m old school as in I developed circa 1991 to 1999 in C & VB3 so I am a dinasour in the development. I learn something each day so I will look into the REST API doc you linked above but to really talk intelligently to the WP All Import folks, I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon. Also we have budget (grant) restrictions, although it’ll be Iwe can’t onboard another developer. I know if we had the budget I would’ve already asked our developer to look in but this is out-of-scope so I have to do the ground work.

So, again, if I can cut corners do you know if those fields necessary to setup recurring events as imports exposed & available through REST API?

Thanx for the continued communication!

Tak

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Tak,

When you get a change to read through the document I provided you with, you will see that you can take a look at the REST API documentation in order to see what you can alter.

I cannot guarantee the customizations that you are looking to achieve, and I am limited in the way that I can assist with customizations as per our Support Policy.

Please let me know if there’s anything else that I can answer for you!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Hi Jamie,

I’ve reached out to WP All Import and talking with Michael. Per his instructions I created a demo site on their website and stepped through a process to see what WP All Import sees. The results are what you see in the attached PDFs.

I’m poking at things blindly but in one section during step 3, I was able to query (i.e. auto-detect) the custom fields used by Events Calendar Pro and one field –

Here’s a snippet of my findings Email to WP All Import’s Michael – I’ll put it in BOLD:

I poked around in All Imports & stepped through while exploring stuff … in step 3.1 I used the auto-detect to pull up custom fields & 19 were discovered(?). A little over my head at this point & dangerous (LOL!) but the custom field Event Recurrence had underlying information & the Key:Value table looked interesting with the Value of each Key probably meaning something to specify(?) the recurrence pattern … although I have no clue what “a:3” or “s:12″ may mean (unless they are reserved system variables of WP?). This is a snippet of what I saw …

Key: Value

rules: a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:”type”;s:6:”Custom”;s:6:”custom”;a:4:{s:8:”interval”;s:1:”1″;s:4:”week”;a:1:{s:3:”day”;a:1:{i:0;s:1:”3″;}}s:9:”same-time”;s:3:”yes”;s:4:”type”;s:6:”Weekly”;}s:8:”end-type”;s:2:”On”;s:3:”end”;s:10:”2018-06-27″;s:14:”EventStartDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 11:30:00″;s:12:”EventEndDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 14:00:00″;}}

exclusions: a:3:{i:0;a:4:{s:4:”type”;s:6:”Custom”;s:6:”custom”;a:4:{s:4:”date”;a:1:{s:4:”date”;s:10:”2017-12-20″;}s:9:”same-time”;s:3:”yes”;s:4:”type”;s:4:”Date”;s:8:”interval”;i:1;}s:14:”EventStartDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 11:30:00″;s:12:”EventEndDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 14:00:00″;}i:1;a:4:{s:4:”type”;s:6:”Custom”;s:6:”custom”;a:4:{s:4:”date”;a:1:{s:4:”date”;s:10:”2018-01-03″;}s:9:”same-time”;s:3:”yes”;s:4:”type”;s:4:”Date”;s:8:”interval”;i:1;}s:14:”EventStartDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 11:30:00″;s:12:”EventEndDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 14:00:00″;}i:2;a:6:{s:4:”type”;s:6:”Custom”;s:6:”custom”;a:4:{s:8:”interval”;s:1:”1″;s:5:”month”;a:3:{s:8:”same-day”;s:2:”no”;s:6:”number”;s:6:”Fourth”;s:3:”day”;s:1:”3″;}s:9:”same-time”;s:3:”yes”;s:4:”type”;s:7:”Monthly”;}s:8:”end-type”;s:2:”On”;s:3:”end”;s:10:”2018-06-27″;s:14:”EventStartDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 11:30:00″;s:12:”EventEndDate”;s:19:”2017-12-06 14:00:00″;}}

By any chance is this “the” field that instructs how recurring events are to be created? Is the REST API doc where I find the acceptable values and what they are? Or are there other fields that Events Calendar Pro works with?

Again, I may be totally off as, admittedly, I don’t have the expertise. Michael from WP All Import has gotten me this far, any chance Modern Tribe can help me too so I can assess if WP All Import is the tool I can use to augment Events calendar Pro? I understand policy and I’m not trying to do something illegal – just trying to assess if I can invest in WP All talk and if I can what the process is to configure to import recurring events.

Tak

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Tak,

I am not seeing any attached PDFs, but I did find some more information that might be helpful in pointing you in the right direction.  Here are some links that I think might help you to achieve the results you are looking for:

– http://www.wpallimport.com/tour/scheduled-imports/
– http://www.wpallimport.com/documentation/custom-fields/theme-plugin-fields/

I hope this helps!  Let me know how it goes!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Hi Jamie,

Regarding your latest links … unfortunately, I have “been there & done that”.

Maybe with this long thread I’ve confused you but at this juncture I need to know several things that WP All Import engineer has tried to show me: what really are the fields used by Events Calendar Pro and ALL the allowable values to those fields that make an event “recurring” according to the patterns specified, exception dates, etc.

FYI, here’s what the WP All Import engineer helped me understand and I think we have reached a point that I need info from Modern Tribe as to what I asked above in BOLD:

“In looking at this, some custom PHP code would have to be used with our API to get recurring events imported properly.

When a recurring event is created, a series of child events are created in the “tribe_events” post type, with the child events being associated with the parent event via the “post_parent” column in the “wp_posts” database table.

Also, for all events (both the parent & the child events), the serialized array you mentioned has to be created & stored in the _EventRecurrence custom field for an event. Here’s how the data looks when it’s been unserialized: http://www.unserialize.com/s/21039e8d-4055-e489-0296-0000468287e4″

Can you validate what he figured out about – i.e. is that how it works? Also is it possible for me to know the question above – i.e. fields, allowable values, etc?

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi Tak,

I’ve gotten some feedback from my colleagues and have some additional information for you that you may find helpful.  Here is an example of creating a recurring event that I can share:

Tribe__Events__API::createEvent( [
'post_title' => 'Some post',
'post_content' => 'Lorem ipsum other stuff and so on.'
'EventStartDate' => '2017-12-25',
'EventEndDate' => '2017-12-25',
'EventStartHour' => 09,
'EventEndHour' => 20,
'EventStartMinute' => 0,
'EventEndMinute' => 0,
'recurrence' => [
'rules' => [ [
'type' => 'Every Week',
'end-type' => 'After',
'end' => null,
'end-count' => 1,
] ]
]
] );
Obviously, the recurrence rule will be of most interest to you and you will need to translate the JSON data that you shared into that format.

Beyond that, I’m afraid that additional customization assistance is beyond the scope of support that we can provide.  But I hope that the information that I have provided you helps to get you going in the right direction!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[center4aging]

Hi Jamie,

Thanx for consulting with your colleagues.

Sorry that it’s getting time to understand this 🙁

You have hit the nail one the head: recurrence rules. In my own admittance I am NOT quite there with the newer languages so if I’m to take a hazard guess, you are saying that if I reformat what the WP All Import engineer uncovered for me, I can get all the possible recurrence rules enumerated?

Sorry if this is taking long and thanx for your patience!

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Yes, if you are able to reformat the data that was given to you by the WP All Import engineer into the format that I have provided you with, it is possible that you may be able to make this work, though I can’t make any guarantees.

I hope this helps!

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