Author Topic: Importing Events with Addresses (Read 1419 times)

FredJones · June 23, 2008, 02:24:36 pm

I have an XLS file of events which I turned into a MySQL table. I need to import these into CiviCRM. I therefore made a Drupal module which runs through each events and imports it.

All of the fields I have determined how to import--for some I use the V2 API (CiviCRM 2.0.4) and then for the custom fields I use CRM_Core_DAO::executeQuery to run a simple SQL query to update the field in the custom data table. This part works fine.

The only other data I need to import is the location of the events. It seems that when I make a new event with a simple location (I only need to store one little "Street Address" field for location and that's it) a record is made in civicrm_address and then a record in civicrm_loc_block (linked to the civicrm_address record) and then the record in civicrm_event is linked to the record in civicrm_loc_block. From what I see, that's it. At least for a simple location.

My questions:

1. Is this correct?

2. If I have repeated locations should I reuse the existing record in civicrm_address and make a new civicrm_loc_block record or just reuse the existing civicrm_loc_block record and have multiple events linked to it? The location is indeed physically the same place.

Seems that the difference regarding the two options of my 2. above would be with regard to changing / adding fields like email or phone.

Thank you

Michał Mach · June 30, 2008, 07:08:39 am

Hey,

Ad 1. Yes, that's how we store location for the event. :-)

Ad 2. We currently do not support single location per multiple events - therefore some of consequences of excercising your approach might be unpredictable. I didn't test it in practice, so I might be wrong, but here's what might happen: if you delete an event which has the same loc_block record as others, it will trigger removing the loc_block itself, and than, through foreign key reference, all your events referring to this loc_block will be gone as well.

So in general, I would propose creating separate loc_block (and civicrm_address) records for each event.

Thx,
m

FredJones · June 30, 2008, 09:42:39 am

Thank you.

marqpdx · February 21, 2009, 04:32:50 pm

Hi, i'm doing just this, importing events with locations.

my thinking was to:
1. use the location api to create an address record
2. then manually create the loc_block record.
3. then create the event record, using the event API...

that's what i understood from the above comments.

problem with this is, the location API seems to want to require a contact_id, even though a number of addresses in the address table have contact_id = NULL. i tried passing NULL into the event API, but get a contact_id required error.

please advise, if possible!
thanks,
m

Donald Lobo · February 21, 2009, 05:19:21 pm

for now, i would manually create the address record. You should also file an issue that will permit folks to create an address/email/im record without a contact id. We'll fix this for a future release of 2.2

lobo

CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

News:

Author Topic: Importing Events with Addresses (Read 1419 times)

FredJones

Importing Events with Addresses

Michał Mach

Re: Importing Events with Addresses

FredJones

Re: Importing Events with Addresses

marqpdx

Re: Importing Events with Addresses

Donald Lobo

Re: Importing Events with Addresses