simple integration query & ezboard migration

[holwebs]

Hi,

I currently run a travel website (using bespoke CMS) displaying travel content, paid adverts & affiliate stuff plus I run a separate travel forum on Ezboard. There are links between the 2 & the ezboard 'theme' reflects my web site design.

I've been thinking about hosting the forum myself for a while but the enforced move to yuku (from which I believe there is no conversion yet?) is pushing me to get moving.

So queries are:

1) I would like to 'integrate' the web site & forum so that I can

a) display stuff such as 'no of current visitors' & 'latest posts' from specific forums on relevant pages of the web site
b) display some of my advertising on the forum

I don't need to integrate databases & will probably run the forum on a separate server. I just want to attract visitors between the 2. Are there modules out there to do this? Or should I/can I use phpAdsNew on the forum to display the adverts?

2) re Ezboard migration, I've just found a post from someone asking about a script to map migrated member's posts to new vbulletin members & no-one replied. Does this have to be done manually?

Thank you.

[RMS-Chef]

1. That is possible. Do some searching here, you will find what you need.

I managed the moving of a good sized EZ-Board over to vB about two years ago. It had about 15,000 members and I think about 500,000 posts at the time. Since EZ will not give up database backups it is a bit of challenge. First, vBulletin staff will handle the majority of the migration for you. This is due to the fact that is uses a special script that "spiders" your EZBoard to collect all the posts and such. Users will have to register again at the new vBulletin. Users are not moved, PMs are not moved, etc. Now, for posts, existing posts are treated like a guest post but the usernames are correct. So there is a script available that allows you to merge all of a user's previous posts into their newly created vB account. The script has two fields and you enter their previous EZ username and their newly created vB username and it will merge all the old posts into the user. This is done one at a time so it is obviously used sparingly. We did it for all the staff and over the course of a month or so we did it for about 200 or 300 of the most active members that requested it. For the most part it was not a big deal though since the old threads still had their username there, it's just it was not "linked" to the new account unless they were run through that script.

I think it was Freddy that does the EZBoard imports and he was fantastic. Had the whole thing done in about two hours if I remember correctly. You do have to sacrifice a little bit with the move (not being able to import PM, users, etc.) but you need to think long term. With EZBoard, they own your content. There is no other forum software company that I know of that offers free (with a license purchase of course) migration and support. If you are going to do it, do it quickly. The longer you wait, theoretically the harder it will be to get away from EZ.

The board we moved was www.LostTV-Forum.com and with yesterdays S4 show airing we are about to break 2 Million posts. Overall a great success.

[holwebs]

Thanks for the encouragement re ezboard.

I've just checked my forum & it's much smaller - 21,500 posts & around 1300 members. I didn't realise vbulletin did the conversion for you as I was thinking of setting up a test board first, & doing a trial conversion before going ahead as I'll then have to suspend the ezboard to stop further posts. Is that possible?

Btw, like your Lost forum - we 'lost' access to it when our Cable company ditched it - have recently bought the DVDs of series 3.

[Dismounted]

Originally Posted by holwebs

I didn't realise vbulletin did the conversion for you as I was thinking of setting up a test board first, & doing a trial conversion before going ahead as I'll then have to suspend the ezboard to stop further posts. Is that possible?

vBulletin only does ezboard imports because it is a very complicated procedure, unlike importing from other boards (which is very easy). Anyway, you'll have to suspend the ezboard to stop further registrations/posts in any case, because if you don't, it will cause errors.

[RMS-Chef]

The key is to inform the community well in advance that you are moving and let them know that they will need to locally backup any PMs they may want and that they will have to register at the new board. You will be down most of a full day though. If I remember correctly you install the new board first and you can prep it as much as possible as users are not imported. We "pre-registered" all the board staff at the new board then did the account merge for them after the import before opening back up. You can merge users at any time after the import. Keep in mind that if you do some work getting that set up, backup your database before the import so you can restore it with all your work intact should there be an issue with the import and you have to start over.

[holwebs]

Hi,

have now signed up for a demo & am playing with it - there is so much there & looks very good.

So I now have a couple more queries:

1. In order to prepare for the ezboard import, do I have to create all the categories & forums in advance or does the migration do this?

2. I currently have a customised theme on ezboard to make my forum look my website using the ezboard Custom Header & Custome Footer (someone did this for me). Is there any way of (or guide to) mapping this on to the styles & templates in vBulletin. I've had a look at this in VB but it looks incredibly complicated & time consuming.

Thanks

[Marco van Herwaarden]

1. No all needed categories etc.. will be created during the import.

2. Styles can easily be modified with plain CSS and HTML. It is not possible to migrate your old style, but in most cases it should not be too difficult to create a similar looking style.

[holwebs]

Thanks Marco.

However since posting this query I did a search at Vbulletin.com & found this post:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showt...71#post1066520 which states:

Once you buy vBulletin and install it, go ahead and create empty forums for every forum you want imported from EZBoard... Freddie B. (staff member at vBulletin who handles all EZBoard -> vBulletin imports) will ask you for a side-by-side list of the OLD forums/subforums and NEW forums/subforums in a text file, e-mail, or Microsoft Word file so he can make any changes from how your old forum is organized vs. how your new one will be organized and imports correctly.

So I am now a little confused about how much I need to prepare my forum in advance of the move. Basically I want to have as little 'down-time' on my forum as possible so I want to prepare as much as possible whilst the ezboard one is still active.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

I suggest that you open a ticket at sales@vbulletin.com asking that question. I have never performed an EZBoard import myself, so not sure about the work that needs to be done before the import. If you would go to vBulletin you will be notified about the procedures as they are at this time.