New Customer Guide to Importing Question and Answer Content and/or Users
If you're transitioning from a different platform, or if you simply want to have your team create some great content for you to start out with, then you'll need to import your Q&A content (and potentially users if you're wanting to support a community where your customers can also answer questions).
IMPORTING QUESTION AND ANSWER CONTENT
In your administration site, you'll see an option in your left hand navigation under "Content > Import Content" as shown here:
You can click on that where you'll see a step by step guide on how to Import Content. Within that page you'll see links to the following:
If you follow the guides and spot check your work before and after your import, things can go very smoothly. We ALWAYS recommend importing a very small batch (5-10) to start when you feel like you've got everything the way you want it...and then checking those items you've imported to make sure everything looks good with both the content and any category/product associations. If everything looks good to you, then you can do the larger batch and be confident that everything is going to import as you'd expect and like.
IMPORTING USERS (OPTIONAL)
NOTE: If you don't plan on giving your customers the ability to propose answers to questions, you can ignore this and just import your content.
Many customers choose to not have their customers engaged with answering questions, and in that case importing content will be enough...but if you are going to have your customers answering questions and especially if they've answered questions on your previous platform...then you'll likely want to have their previous Q&A content associated with the appropriate user so they get credit for those answers in the community. If that is the case, you'll want to import your users BEFORE you import your content....so we can get those in our platform. Then, when you import your content, you'll be able to identify what users the content should be associated with....and those users will already be imported so our platform can effectively association the content with the appropriate user.
You can find an option to import users within your administration area in the left navigation under "Users > Import Users" as shown here:
There you will see step by step instructions for importing users. It's important to read the import formatting guide document thoroughly which is found through the below link:
User Import Formatting Guide
Spending a bit more time before you import to make sure your content is formatted appropriately and spot checking that data can save you a lot of time later in cleaning up any mistakes that you've made which was detailed in the documentation. As with content, we recommend doing a very small batch (5-10) as a test...and then checking on those users to make sure everything was imported and is showing as you'd expect based on what you imported. If so, you can go ahead and do the full batch confidently from there.
The above information and the documentation referenced within it should help you migrate any content or users effectively to our platform. Let us know if you run into any additional questions as you import your content and we'll make sure you're taken care of.
IMPORTING QUESTION AND ANSWER CONTENT
In your administration site, you'll see an option in your left hand navigation under "Content > Import Content" as shown here:
You can click on that where you'll see a step by step guide on how to Import Content. Within that page you'll see links to the following:
- Download the CSV Template: This link will download a CSV that contains the columns of information that we will be able to receive and import into our platform. You easiest if you just save the template, and copy/paste your data into that template for the best results and to ensure you don't introduce any changes that may cause issue with the import.
- View the Content Formatting Guide: It's critical that you follow the Content Formatting Guide on what format the content should be before you import. Migrating content from one platform requires that you be detail oriented in order to ensure everything gets over in a way that you're going to be satisfied with....so while reading documentation is never fun....it's important to do in this case which will save you A LOT of time later. You can access that guide by clicking here.
If you follow the guides and spot check your work before and after your import, things can go very smoothly. We ALWAYS recommend importing a very small batch (5-10) to start when you feel like you've got everything the way you want it...and then checking those items you've imported to make sure everything looks good with both the content and any category/product associations. If everything looks good to you, then you can do the larger batch and be confident that everything is going to import as you'd expect and like.
IMPORTING USERS (OPTIONAL)
NOTE: If you don't plan on giving your customers the ability to propose answers to questions, you can ignore this and just import your content.
Many customers choose to not have their customers engaged with answering questions, and in that case importing content will be enough...but if you are going to have your customers answering questions and especially if they've answered questions on your previous platform...then you'll likely want to have their previous Q&A content associated with the appropriate user so they get credit for those answers in the community. If that is the case, you'll want to import your users BEFORE you import your content....so we can get those in our platform. Then, when you import your content, you'll be able to identify what users the content should be associated with....and those users will already be imported so our platform can effectively association the content with the appropriate user.
You can find an option to import users within your administration area in the left navigation under "Users > Import Users" as shown here:
There you will see step by step instructions for importing users. It's important to read the import formatting guide document thoroughly which is found through the below link:
User Import Formatting Guide
Spending a bit more time before you import to make sure your content is formatted appropriately and spot checking that data can save you a lot of time later in cleaning up any mistakes that you've made which was detailed in the documentation. As with content, we recommend doing a very small batch (5-10) as a test...and then checking on those users to make sure everything was imported and is showing as you'd expect based on what you imported. If so, you can go ahead and do the full batch confidently from there.
The above information and the documentation referenced within it should help you migrate any content or users effectively to our platform. Let us know if you run into any additional questions as you import your content and we'll make sure you're taken care of.
