Importing Customers and Products in aMember 4

Discussion in 'aMember Pro v.4' started by invictus, Nov 26, 2011.

  1. invictus

    invictus Member

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    When importing customers into aMember 4 is there a way to also assign products to each customer?

    I have 2,000+ customers to import and it would be great if there is a way to specify what products they own, and even better if I can import payment date, price etc.

    Can any of this be done?
  2. gswaim

    gswaim CGI-Central Partner

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    Not with the built-in utility; however, you could see if the aMember staff could handle this as a custom job.
  3. slinky

    slinky Member

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    I'm a little confused. Does this mean that the import doesnt import the products you have setup in V3 and the proper assigning of each user to the proper product? I have over 100,000 members. Not a job that can be done by hand. :) While I might be able to use mysql to create the necessary queries, unless it's a simple table move of members it could be a very difficult experience, especially if setting up members creates other related information.

    Most important, is aMember 4 ready to use on live sites?
  4. invictus

    invictus Member

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    Hi slinky, from what I can see there is no way to import products or products+customers using the aMember 4 import tool as of yet.

    I think the best (or only) way for you to migrate from aMember 3 is to move a copy of your database and do the necessary SQL queries. I don't know how much the database structure has changed from v.3 to v.4 though.

    I might be wrong, but the only thing that I can see works with the aMember 4 import tool is a very limited set of customer data:

    To answer your last question, yes aMember 4 is ready for live sites, but I think this is mainly for new sites and not sites upgrading from aMember 3. You would of course need to address the database import issues if you are going to upgrade from v.3 - that I'm not sure about.
  5. slinky

    slinky Member

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    invictus - thank you very much for the detailed reply. I'll have to look at what is required because I make extensive use of the additional forms, including having different sign in forms for each type of user. My guess is that my implementation of aMember is probably more complex than most here. I'm wondering whether merely upgrading a copy of the database will keep the items moving with it and whether some features may be still not in v4. I guess the only way is to do it. This is going to be interesting. I'll keep you all posted...
  6. invictus

    invictus Member

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    Yea it sounds risky moving the database without some official help on what queries etc. will be needed.

    I would make a test/demo install of aMember 4 and see if it can do everything you have set up with aMember 3, then add some products and customers etc. and take a look at the database tables to see how different they are form v.3 - that will at least give you some idea of a starting point.

    aMember 4 is a huge improvement in my opinion, so if the upgrade can be done I would say it's worth the effort. Considering how complex your setup is and the number of customers who rely on it to be working properly, I would be very cautious about messing with the live sites just yet. Play with it on a test server first where you can't hurt anything =)
  7. gswaim

    gswaim CGI-Central Partner

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    V4 was recoded from the ground up and I don't think you can simply move dbs over. I know a V3 to V4 upgrade feature is planned for the 4.2 release (based on the Road Map located in the BugTracket). In several threads Alex has said that upgrading from V3 to V4 is currently not an automated process. Apparently it requires some custom work based on types of products and payment processors.

    I think Alex, and crew, are willing to help (but not necessarily at no cost) with upgrades on a case by case basis. I would contact Alex and let him evaluate what it is going to take to successfully upgrade a given site.
  8. gswaim

    gswaim CGI-Central Partner

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    Then you will like the way this is handled in V4. It has a built-in form builder that allows you to build an unlimited number of signup/sales pages. The pages are built by dragging and dropping the features you want on the page. Each page is then issued a unique URL.
  9. invictus

    invictus Member

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    I put in a ticket about this, and this is the response I received from Anton:

    Does anyone know what he is talking about?
  10. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

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    Sorry for such a response!

    When you use aMember 4 Admin CP -> Import function, you on the first step upload a CSV file, then on the second step you may check a checkbox at the right top corner, named "Add Subscription". It will allow you to import subscription info from the CSV file. However, it is not a solution for customers used aMember v3!

    To move from aMember3 : http://www.amember.com/docs/Migration_from_legacy_aMember_Pro_v3
  11. invictus

    invictus Member

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    Ok I see what he meant is that when importing a csv file there is a checkbox to add a subscription on the page after uploading the csv file.

    There is no export function for this, so I am unable to see sample data for what the "Subscription" field should look like. Do I need to put the subscription ID, or the name of the product?

    This should really be built into the exporter so we can see sample data. Until then, some instruction would be nice.
  12. invictus

    invictus Member

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    PS - I am not moving from aMember 3, I am moving from a totally different system. I think this csv import is the perfect solution for me if I can get all the needed data in this way.
  13. invictus

    invictus Member

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    One more thing - using this importer, is it possible to add more than one product/subscription to a customer?
  14. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

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    It will be easier if you let me know what format of data you have right now, and I will try to suggest a solution. And how many subscriptions/payments have your customers in average?

    If the system you are migrating from is popular enough, we may be willing to develop an automated importer from this system.
  15. invictus

    invictus Member

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    Hi alex, I am importing from Plimus.

    I have a csv export of all customers from my Plimus account, which is about 3,000. On average, each customer has 2 products. Some have 1, some have 3+. I only have 5 products total.

    The csv I have as an export from Plimus has each customer on one row, and has multiple product columns.

    I can open the csv export in excel and do a find/replace for the products to get those columns in whatever format I need to import into aMember, as long as I can have several columns for Subscriptions when importing.

    Let me know if you need any other info. Thank you very much for the help.
  16. alex

    alex aMember Pro Customer Staff Member

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    Does it generate a separate line for each purchase?

    How do you plan to link purchases from the same client? By e-mail address?
  17. invictus

    invictus Member

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    The export I used put all purchases from each client on one line.

    It's ok with me to lump all purchases into one transaction for the purpose of getting them into aMember. I can do that in excel for the transactions, but not the products. The important thing is that I need to be able to add access to all necessary products for each customer. It seems this could be done by simple allowing Product 1, Product 2, etc. on import. Would that be possible?
  18. slinky

    slinky Member

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    Alex - Is there any way to properly migrate an existing v3 install to v4? I have a number of custom fields, which is what I worry about most. I want to make sure that all the data per each user is copied properly. In theory, this doesn't seem to be a huge task but if it has been recoded, this could be a real challenge to someone not familiar with the system. I'd love to get away from the clunky way I've got V3 installed and the way I've had to trick amember into doing what it is currently doing right now.
  19. invictus

    invictus Member

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    Any update on this?
  20. invictus

    invictus Member

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    If there is a way to import the same users twice, each time with different products, then merge them - that would work too. Is it possible?

    I could use an answer on this asap. Thank you.

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