Import and Export News for DataLife Engine

The module is useful when you need to transfer news from one site to another, bulk update existing posts, upload a large catalog of products, movies, applications, or classifieds, and also save the entire news database in a convenient tabular format.

What the module can do

The module allows you to export site news in the following formats:

• CSV;
• XLSX;
• Excel XML with the XLS extension.

You can export to a table not only the title and text of the news, but also almost all related data:

• news ID;
• title;
• SEO-friendly URL;
• short description;
• full description;
• categories;
• author;
• publication date;
• tags;
• views;
• rating;
• number of votes;
• publication status;
• publish on the homepage;
• pin news;
• allow comments;
• SEO title;
• SEO description;
• SEO keywords;
• all additional DLE fields.

Additional fields are exported as separate clear columns, for example:

xf_year
xf_country
xf_price
xf_kp_id

Such a table is convenient to edit in Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc, or another editor, and then upload back to the site.

Full-featured news import

During import, the module analyzes the uploaded file and shows the detected columns.

For each column, you can choose where exactly the data will be written:

• to a standard news field;
• to an existing additional field;
• to a new additional field;
• skip the column.

If the file contains an additional field that does not yet exist on the site, the module will offer to create it.

You can choose the type of the new field:

• single line;
• large text;
• HTML and JavaScript;
• list;
• «Yes/No» switch;
• date and time.

This is especially convenient when transferring news between sites with different sets of additional fields.

Field mapping between different sites

The names of additional fields on sites may differ.

For example, on the old site the field is called:

xf_release_year

and on the new site:

xf_year

In this case, there is no need to rename the entire table manually. In the module admin panel, it is enough to specify that the column xf_release_year should be written to the field year.

In this way, you can override any field in the imported table.

Updating existing news

The module can not only add new posts, but also update existing news.

To find matches, you can use:

• news ID;
• SEO-friendly URL;
• title.

When a match is found, different behavior options are available:

• update the existing news item;
• skip the row;
• always create a new news item.

Thanks to this, the module is suitable for bulk updating prices, descriptions, release years, links, ratings, images, and any additional data.

Working with categories

Categories can be imported:

• by ID;
• by name;
• by category SEO-friendly URL.

If the required category does not exist on the site, the module can automatically create it.

You can import one or more categories for each news item.

Working with authors

The news author can be determined:

• by user ID;
• by login.

Also, in the settings you can specify a default author. It will be used if the user from the table is not found.