I’m Considering Buying Another One Of Your Plugins Have A Question

[ericbonnici]

Hello

I currently run the Events Calendar on our site and have a question about it and another plugin.

Please see the private area of this post.

Thank you

[Geoff B.]

This reply is private.

[ericbonnici]

Thanks Geoff

I will be using all the import options not just the Import From URL option.

In fact, I will be mostly importing events from Facebook (Facebook Pages/Groups)

Does this make a difference to your reply to my question?

I am assuming the other import options, like from Facebook, are working properly and not in beta like the Import From URL option is this correct?

The whole point of using Event Aggregator is to make listing events on our site easier, more efficient and to save time. If you’re suggesting I back up my database every time I do an import than it kind of the defeats the purpose of using Event Aggregator.

Are you able to tell me what the Algorithm in Event Aggregator looks at when trying to match Venues/Organizers already in our ECP Database to the ones they are importing?

I would like to make sure our current venues and organizers have as much info as closely matched to the info that is being imported.

Thanks
Eric

[Geoff B.]

Good afternoon Eric,

Thank you for taking the time to write back.
No, that does not change the answer to your question.

I am assuming the other import options, like from Facebook, are working properly and not in beta like the Import From URL option is this correct?

Yes, all of these work properly. In the odd case where there are issues, we typically squash bugs via maintenance releases.

For the record, the import from URL works great for the most part, it is just not as time-proven as other methods.

The whole point of using Event Aggregator is to make listing events on our site easier, more efficient and to save time. If you’re suggesting I back up my database every time I do an import than it kind of the defeats the purpose of using Event Aggregator.

I probably miscommunicated what I meant. My apologies.

Although it is a great idea to actually have a database backup service or plugin running on your site, my suggestion was focused on doing that for your first attempt (to see how you like the results).

Are you able to tell me what the Algorithm in Event Aggregator looks at when trying to match Venues/Organizers already in our ECP Database to the ones they are importing?

To the best of my knowledge, the algorithm mostly looks for a couple of things:

1. Venue name
2. Organizer name

With that in mind, I will double-check that information for you.

As a side note, we do have a built-in “merge duplicate venues” button that appears under Events -> Settings -> General when potential duplicates are suspected.

Hang in there!

Geoff B.

[ericbonnici]

Thanks the reply and all the info Geoff

This is all helpful.

I have one more question.

If my database ends up with duplicate venues or organizers and the “merge duplicate venues” feature is used…. what happens to the descriptions and featured images?

I have some venues already listed that use featured images and a description / content on the page.

Thanks
Eric

[Geoff B.]

Good afternoon Eric,

You have great timing as I also received more info about Organizer and Venue Duplicate validation.

What the algorithm is looking at is the Venue or Organizer post title (name), global id and ID.

Since the Global ID and ID are unlikely to be carried over from one site to the next, this only leaves the post title (name).

In other words, if the Venue or Organizer name does not have exactly the same spelling, there will be duplicates.

With that in mind, we could probably improve on this by adding a filter to allow devs to define own custom matching criteria (e.g. lat/long) and use what is returned there.

In fact, I just opened a ticket for that.

If my database ends up with duplicate venues or organizers and the “merge duplicate venues” feature is used…. what happens to the descriptions and featured images?

My understanding is that this will depend on the scenario, but if a description or a featured image exists, it wins over no description or featured image.

In cases where there are entries for both, typically the most recent one wins.

Again, I would advise some tests of your different potential use cases before going full force on this one.

Best regards,

Geoff B.

[ericbonnici]

Thanks again Geoff!

I have one more question.

Is there an option to have all imports save as drafts?

For our website we like to make sure grammar, spelling, etc. is correct before publishing. In addition, some events from other sites (such as Facebook) are poorly written. We would like to edit some descriptions before publishing.

Eric

[ericbonnici]

Please disregard my last post Geoff.

I read the description on the Aggregator page and see that imports can be saved as drafts first.

I’ve purchased aggregator and testing it out now.

I do have another question. Is there an import Eventbrite events option? I don’t see it anywhere and was wondering how to import form there.

Eric

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Eric,

I am super stoked to see things are moving along for you.

To answer your last question, we do not have an Eventbrite events import feature.
But we do have the next best thing: Eventbrite tickets integration.

You can check it out here: https://theeventscalendar.com/product/wordpress-eventbrite-tickets/

Have a great day!

Geoff B.

[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

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