Import Authority 'Preserve Local Changes' Wipes Out Additional Field Values

[Joel]

Upon re-importing from a Google Calendar, our Additional Field values are removed, even though Import Authority is set to ‘Preserve local changes’.

Steps to Replicate

1. Set up Import Authority to ‘Preserve local changes’
2. Run an import from a Google Calendar
3. Navigate to the event. Set an Additional Field value.
4. Refresh to confirm that the Additional Field value has persisted.
5. In a separate tab, re-run the import from Step 2.
6. Navigate back to the event tab and hit Refresh

Expected: Additional Field value persists
Actual: Additional Field value is missing

Let me know if you can replicate this behavior on your end. I am hopeful there is some way to make this work, as we are currently importing events from our several global offices, and Additional Fields are crucial for sorting and filtering event types – however many local admins are asking for rescheduling to filter through to our global calendar, so we want to use ‘Persist local changes’ instead of ‘Do not re-import’ (which we were using before).

Thank you in advance!

• This topic was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Joel.

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi David,

Thanks so much for reaching out!

As a first troubleshooting step, can you try updating all of your Events Calendar related plugins and test if the issue still occurs?

In addition, can you provide me with the URL that you are trying to import, so that I can do some testing on my end?

Also, can you enable and check the Event Log under Events < Help to see if you see anything unusual? Right under that is your Event Aggregator Status. Can you take a screenshot of what you see there?

Let me know if you have any other questions in the meantime!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[Joel]

I have updated all the plugins and tried again. I could not find a way to update the Event Aggregator – is that included in the base plugin?

Here is the URL we are trying to import: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/iacworld.org_lgld051nhjgb2guaat41dav49s%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Under logs, I do not see any entries. I am not sure if I have to enable them, but they are empty for all days this week. The aggregator status looks good, as well – I have included a screenshot of both.

Thanks for your help and let me know if you need me to look into anything further.

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi David,

Thanks for updating!  Event Aggregator updates come with The Events Calendar, so if that is all updated, then there is nothing else to do there.

Can you give me an example of what you mean by “Set an Additional Field value”?

Perhaps a screenshot would be helpful so that I can replicate what you are doing exactly.  I have done some testing with your Google Calendar on my end with the settings that you have.  I have tried changing the date on the event, then re-imported the event, and can confirm that the changes were preserved as expected.

Let me know!

 

Thanks,

Jaime

 

[Joel]

Thanks, Jaime.

In this case I am referring to the ‘Additional Fields’ which are made available with the Events Calendar PRO plugin – custom fields which are not normally available out of the box. Because we offer events with a variety of languages, pre-requisites, and live/online availability, we set these Additional Fields after importing from our local offices so that users can filter on the events relevant to them.

These are the additional fields which are being cleared out upon re-import. In the data, I believe they are just metadata fields.

I have attached a screenshot of these additional fields in our Edit Event view.

Thanks again and let me know if there’s anything else I can do.

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Hi David,

Thanks so much for all of that information and for bringing this issue to our attention!

I can confirm the behavior that you are describing and have logged a bug report for this issue.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this glitch and we are actively working on a solution for this.

I cannot guarantee when it will be fixed, as it’s in the development team’s hands now.

They need to assign it, code it, test it, and schedule it for release.

The good news is that you will be contacted as soon as a fix is available.

Thank you for your patience as we see this through.  Please let me know if you have any other questions in the meantime.

 

Thanks,

Jaime

[Joel]

Thank you very much!

I understand, these things take time and need to be fit into the schedule.

If you have a public link to the bug or a rough ETA on when it might be completed, that would be great, as I’ll consider implementing a workaround on my end.

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Awesome, thanks for your understanding.

I don’t have an ETA on the bug just yet, but your thread is on the bug report, so that when a fix becomes released, you will be notified.

Please let me know if anything comes up in the meantime.  This thread will remain open so you can respond at any time with any additional questions or updates.

[Victor]

Hi David!

Just wanted to share with you that a new release of our plugins is out, including a fix for this issue 🙂

Find out more about this release → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-week-15-april-2018/

Please update the plugins and let us know if the fix works for your site.

Best,
Victor

[Joel]

Hi Victor,

I just re-ran the import with ‘Preserve Local Changes’ and my Additional Fields are preserved!

Thanks a lot for the fix. This is a big help.

Take care,

David

[Jaime Marchwinski]

Glad we could help, you are welcome back in our support forums any time!

Since you marked this thread as Resolved, I am going to close this thread.

Have a great week!

[Author]

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