Looking for Advice on Importing Users

[nikvon]

The guys at the vBulletin Forums suggested I try this post here:

Does anyone have a comprehensive set of directions on how to Import Users using phpmyadmin?

I would very much appreciate any experienced users' do's, dont's and dont forget to's tips.

I have MySQL v3.23.32 and phpmyadmin v2.2.3.

This is the first time for me trying this. I want to append about 400 users to a user database that already contains about 110 users.

I'm no stranger to importing data into databases, but have never done it with these tools into this type of database engine.

I have the csv file ready to go and I know to back up the mysql tables before I proceed.

Do I leave the UserID field empty (I see it is an auto-increment field), or do I need to assign a userid to each new record?

Do I also need to Import/append the new users to the UserField too, even if the field1 through field5 will be empty? How about into the UserActivation table? I notice both have the UserID field in them.

How to I create that 10 digit date/time number for JoinDate for June 1 2002 at 6am?

After sucessfully importing/appending these records, what do I need to update from the admin panel?

Any helpful hint would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Xenon]

ok

1) User-ID can't be empty, but if you'll take the NULL operator, it will use the autoincrement for that, so it works.

2) yes, you have to fill the userfield table too, or you cannot change userinfos in the admin-panel.

3) you can create the datelines with the php-function mktime(), look at php.net about the params

4) if the users are in the DB, you don't need to do anything more in the ACP, they are in

[mashby]

I'm looking to do the same thing. I had an offline database that I was using for my membership and I have approximately 600 members to import into vB.

The posts above were very helpful, but I have a few more questions.
- What do I do with the password field? Can I assign a generic password, if so how?
- Also, what about lastvisit, lastactivity, and lastpost fields. Can they be blank?
- Lastly, once imported, the users are ready to access their accounts correct? In other words, there's no e-mail verification stage right?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

[Xenon]

Originally posted by mashby

1 What do I do with the password field? Can I assign a generic password, if so how?
2 Also, what about lastvisit, lastactivity, and lastpost fields. Can they be blank?
3 Lastly, once imported, the users are ready to access their accounts correct? In other words, there's no e-mail verification stage right?

1 if your pws are already encrypted with md5, you can just copy it to the online db, if not you have to encrypt them
you can also assign a generic pw, e.g. if the pw should be the username:

[sql]UPDATE user SET password=MD5(username)[/sql]

2 Yes, then standart time will be inserted

3 if you set them to usergroup 2 no verification is required anymore.