Export all events and users and remove them.

[robhadfield]

Hi all!

I have a situation where I want to export or remove events and attendees from my database, is there a way of doing that in bulk?

Due to European GDPR I cannot store user details longer than 12 months.

I need to :
– Remove all attendees (users) that are only assigned to past events
– Remove all events by category

How can I achieve this?
Thanks
Rob

[robhadfield]

Hi guys – this is getting quite urgent now as it’s a legal requirement here in the UK.

Please advise how I can achieve this.

Thanks
Rob

[robhadfield]

Helllooooo…. guys. I’d really like a response to this please.

The slogan “We’ve got your back so you never feel lost or alone.” is lost on me 🙁

Cheers
Rob

[Andras]

Hello Rob,

Thanks for reaching out to us!

I do apologize for the somewhat long waiting time. We have been receiving an unusually large number of questions in the last couple of days. Our team is working hard to get an answer to every question as soon as possible.

Though I’m not a lawyer or a GDPR expert, to the best of my knowledge it is not a GDPR requirement to automatically delete data after a certain period of time.

The closest paragraph is:

“The right to be forgotten gives users an option to erase personal data, and stop further collection and processing of the data. This process involves the user withdrawing consent for their personal data to be used.”

That though needs the user to request the deletion of the data.

I’m not sure any tools exist in our plugins that would allow an administrator to delete old data with a click of a button, but I will ask the team who is handling GDPR related tasks.

Please hang in there, I will get back to you in the shortest time possible.

Thanks for your patience so far.

Cheers,
Andras

 

[Andras]

Hi again,

Meanwhile I’m waiting for an answer from my colleagues I did some searching.

I found this plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/gdpr/

Gives you a nice set of tools that should allow you to review a users data and delete them.

Once activated go to the GDPR > Requests menu > Erasure tab, there you can add a user by email, then Review their content, and delete the user if wanted.

You might find this plugin useful as well, though I believe this functionality is baked into WP already under Tools > Export / Erase Personal Data.

Cheers,
Andras

[robhadfield]

Thanks for the response @András

It’s not quite as simple as that unfortunately. We cannot store data longer than required by the business to fulfil the user’s contract with us. EG: if the user attends an event with us, once that event is over we no longer have the right to store their info. 12 months is a guide as this allows queries regarding potential refunds etc.

Also – because our terms of service and storage have change along with GDPR, anyone who signed up prior has not given explicit permission to store their details and/or store contact info.

We have a GDPR-licenced consultant assisting us and it’s definitely something we need to be able to do. We can store user info for 12 months after the event date but have to remove after that – not automatically necessarily, it can be an admin / database task for us to complete.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
Rob

[Andras]

Hey Rob,

Thanks for clarifying the question.

We do not have a feature quite like this built in.

If you go to Events > Settings > General tab > General Settings section, there you will find a “Move to trash events older than…” option. You can set that to the required value. However that only removes the events if I know correctly. (Just checking this with the developer.)

As for users and rsvps and tickets, that will need to be a manual work.

The following query will give you the IDs of all the events the user with ID=1 has RSVP’d to:

SELECT post_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE (meta_key = '_tribe_tickets_attendee_user_id' AND meta_value = '1')

If you are using WooCommerce, then the order id of those can help too.

When a ticket is purchased through Event Tickets (and WooCommerce), then the WooCommerce order id gets registered with the ticket. In the wp_postmeta table you will have an entry where the meta key = ‘_tribe_wooticket_order’ and the meta_value is the WooCommerce order id.

In the same row you also have the post_id, which gives you which ticket / rsvp it’s connected to. That post_id is the ID in the wp_posts table.

If you can tell me what other data you would like to look up / delete, I can try come up with further info / advice on what you can do in the database.

And of course, before doing anything in the database, it is highly recommended to create a backup.

Cheers,
Andras

[robhadfield]

Thanks Andras

I can certainly look into those queries, it’s a shame that it will take a developer to remove them rather it being an admin job.

is there a way to remove the plugin and all data? is that an option when uninstalling? or will it leave attendees as users behind?

Cheers
Rob

[Andras]

Hey Rob,

When uninstalling, data will be left in the database.

it’s a shame that it will take a developer to remove them rather it being an admin job

I understand your disappointment.

While our plugin does not do that yet, you could give a try to Bulk Delete or other similar plugins that will let you delete content based on different criteria.

• https://wordpress.org/plugins/bulk-delete/
• https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-bulk-delete/
• https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-mass-delete/

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Andras

[Andras]

I just did a quick check.

Bulk Delete and WP Bulk Delete seem to be pretty good. I think those can help you with this.

Mass delete is restricted to posts and pages, so don’t bother with that.

A.

[robhadfield]

Thanks for the reply Andras, I’m liaising between devs/client/admin/consultants so it’s taking a while 🙂

When uninstalling, data will be left in the database.

ooh, that’s a bummer! It’s unusual for a plugin (especially a paid plugin) to not have a full uninstall option isn’t it? As a last resort I was thinking I might reinstall to clear everything.

OK…
So users who signed up have the role as customer so I can bulk delete them, that’s good!

And then I could delete all events and start again. At least that way I maintain the store settings and payments etc.

Is there any other meta that I’ll need to remove?

Thanks for your help on this.
Rob

[Andras]

Hey Rob,

It’s unusual for a plugin to not have a full uninstall option isn’t it?

That usually depends on the plugin developer how it is implemented. We have chosen not to delete any data on plugin uninstall. This also ensures that if a user needs to manually reinstall the plugin, the events and the data is unaffected.

You will need to delete:

• the customers and their metadata
• the WooCommerce orders and their metadata
• the purchased tickets and their metadata
• the events and their metadata

The purchased tickets you should be able to delete if you go the the attendee list of the event, check all checkboxes and select ‘Delete’ from the bulk action dropdown. Here’s a screenshot: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/bvfule3bjx18ipz/shot_180917_161837.jpg

For WooCommerce orders you will need to look around in the WooCommerce documentation.

I just checked some details of Bulk Delete. It can delete Meta Fields as well.

Let me know if I can be of further help.

Cheers,
Andras

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

[Author]

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