Author Topic: Best way to import in this situation? (Read 1612 times)

shrill · December 04, 2008, 06:45:12 pm

Hi. Please excuse a newbie question. I can see that there a number of ways to accomplish what I want to do.

I have an association with about 1000 members. The members are currently listed in an MS Access file. The website is a Drupal site: I am currently implementing Civicrm to deal with membership etc. There is a content type on the site that is reserved for members only.

What I need to do:

Register new members using Civicrm but using the same fields as already in the database
Give each new member access to the member content type upon successful payment (assign role and send an email to confirm)
Import the 1000 existing members, create usernames/ passwords (email them to the new members), and give access to the content (ie. assign the Drupal role). Ideally, I'd like to do the import first (and confirm it is all working) before sending the emails

I know that I can do at least some of this with the User Import module (and then I could synch the contacts) but am wondering if there is an easier way. Please note that I am using Drupal 5.12.

Thanks,

Shrill

Dave Greenberg · December 05, 2008, 09:01:02 am

I don't know of any shortcuts for this. The basic steps as I see it are:

Configure CiviCRM and test for new member signups
Determine what (if any) custom fields you need in CiviCRM to handle Access data that doesn't map to our standard fields and implement them.
Configure a Profile that can be used with online membership signup page which collects needed data for new members. Enable "Create CMS User" feature in this profile.
Configure membership types and online membership signup page and test the process.

Import existing members as CiviCRM contacts

Import "memberships" for the imported contacts (CiviMember menu)

Import existing members as Drupal users
Not sure if there's a way to import first and then later trigger emails to them w/ their login info. You'll need to research that on the Drupal side.
Synch users to CiviCRM contacts (from CiviCRM Admin menu).

Note that in 2.1.2+ we distribute a module - CiviMember Roles - which automatically synchs CiviMember memberships to Drupal roles. I suspect this will be useful for you going forward.

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Author Topic: Best way to import in this situation? (Read 1612 times)

shrill

Best way to import in this situation?

Dave Greenberg

Re: Best way to import in this situation?