Manually Enter Old Customers and Orders

[ajasko]

I have just moved from a different shopping cart to AbleCommerce. I would like to put the following into the database, probably manually.

1. The customer's usernames and passwords (this is easy enough)
2. All customer data such as addresses and contact info
3. Old customer orders, including items they ordered, amount they paid, invoice number, shipping amount.

Is this possible to do, and if so how? I think I know how to do the first 2, but I don't know how to enter old orders into the database, including items ordered and amount charged.

[keats76]

May not be as easy as you think:

1) Usernames shouldn't be an issue, but the passwords probably will. Are the passwords from your other system in clear text or are they encrypted?

2) Address information could be entered into the ac_addresses table and then linked back to your new users in the ac_users table. That one shouldn't be too bad.

3) This one could be done, but you'd have to have a pretty intimate knowledge of the ac db (as well as your original cart's db). You'd want to make sure that all of the "Products" from your old system also exist in the new system, you'd then have to create a mapping table from the old ones to the new ones (unless they somehow have the same id, but this is unlikely). You'd have to create "order items", "shipment items", "Payments" and a number of other entries for each order ...

It could be done ... but you've got some work ahead of you. Number one and two could be done via a small amount of coding (assuming you have the old passwords in clear text), but you might want to reconsider number three unless you really need to have that data migrated.

[ajasko]

My other option is using the batch utility. It gives you the ability to download and upload "Orders" in csv format. I did so, and I have put all my old data into the file from the old db. However, the "Orders" spreadsheet does not have all the fields. It has billing address, but no shipping address. It allows me to upload order numbers and prices, but not products. I am thinking I will try to upload the orders, and then manually enter in the corresponding user information. Then, I will see if it lets me add products to the orders (which will have a prices assigned to them from the value entered in the spreadsheet, but no products because you cannot add the products in the spreadsheet). Hopefully it will allow me to upload orders with no price or products, and then edit the orders and put in the products and price without causing an error or db conflict. I think it will work, but I'm not entirely sure.

[ajasko]

I'm also not sure which I should do first: the Orders bulk upload or the users bulk upload

[jmestep]

You should do the users first. I'm not sure you can use the same usernumber from your old system so Able might assign them new user ids. Once they are imported and you get that id, you want to make sure you use that id when you import the orders.
Let us know how it works out. I've never done it and don't have the time to test.