Importing Data into Craft

Con­tin­u­ing our work on migrat­ing a web­site to Craft CMS, let’s dis­cuss choos­ing our import tool. Before export­ing data, we need to have our import tool in place. This is cru­cial because we need to know the struc­ture and for­mat of the data required for import.

Why choose the import tool first?

1. It’s eas­i­er to adjust your export data to fit the import tool than vice versa.
2. You need to know the tool’s lim­i­ta­tions and sup­port­ed for­mats (JSON, XML, CSV, etc.).

For Craft CMS, the best off-the-shelf option is Feed Me, a free plu­g­in from Craft CMS. It allows you to import mul­ti­ple entry types like entries, cat­e­gories, and users.

Let’s look at how to set up Feed Me:

1. Install Feed Me from the Craft Plu­g­in Store.
2. Cre­ate a new feed (e.g., ​“blog import”).
3. Choose the data type (JSON rec­om­mend­ed) and ele­ment type (e.g., entry).
4. Select the sec­tion and entry type.
5. Map Craft fields to the import­ed data elements.
6. Set a unique iden­ti­fi­er to avoid duplicates.
7. Run the import process.

Tips for cre­at­ing a con­tent import plan:

1. Start sim­ple and improve the import as you go.
2. Import relat­ed con­tent first, then the main data.
3. Sub­se­quent imports should update exist­ing data, not add duplicates.
4. Be patient and learn from each import attempt.
5. Aim for a reusable import mech­a­nism that you can run mul­ti­ple times with­out data destruction.

Addi­tion­al considerations:

1. Add a lega­cy ID field to main­tain con­nec­tions between old and new data.
2. This helps with match­ing import­ed data and ver­i­fy­ing the import process.

Next, we’ll dis­cuss export­ing data into an importable for­mat, keep­ing in mind that we’ll be using Feed Me and aim­ing for JSON for­mat if possible.