CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Hi Maxbit

I'm just going through the same thing and I've decided to import all the contacts into CiviCRM. I am then going to import the minimum fields (using mysql cli) to enable a Joomla registration for each current member (as the site I am working on is paid membership). I was going to do all the importing in mysql cli but I would have had to do this table by table and then write a script to generate hash keys for each contact, so instead I've opted to use the CiviCRM import. I still have to run it several times to get all the data in the right place, individuals, organisations, groups etc... but it will be easier to generate/populate the csv's (that I exported from CiviCRM, search -> select -> export) in Calc compared to my table table method, although I may still have to add some data using mysql cli.

Once all your DB is in CiviCRM you can send a mass mail with a direct link to contact profiles see here:   http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC40/Mail-merge+Tokens+for+Contact+Data
the linked profile could then include Joomla registration request.

If your doing any mysql cli imports from csv then you have to disable the foreign key checks example below.
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; LOAD DATA INFILE '/home/username/civicrm_contact.csv' INTO TABLE civicrm_contact FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"'; SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;
Hope this helps.
Generic