Using Feeds Module to Import from Non-Drupal Web Applications

Often when building a Drupal web application as a redesign of a non-Drupal site, there is a need to preserve, export and import the existing data, relationships within that data, as well as user accounts.   

The Feeds and Feeds Tamper module can be utilized, along with SQL query skills, to successfully accomplish this migration.  There are several concepts to keep in mind when using these tools in order for existing data model relationships to be preserved and migrated into the new Drupal site’s content model. There are some time saving strategies to help keep the new data within Drupal associated back to the original data model and values.

This session will provide lessons-learned from migrating various site data both from databases and flat files.  There are concepts to factor into the process, such as:

• the order in which the content type datasets are imported,
• preserving user id numbers (if desired),
• preserving one-to-many or many-to-many relationships (entity references) from the source system into Drupal,
• the value of preserving historic id values from the source system,
• refreshing previously-loaded data to apply new fields or update existing data values
• organization and source control of the feed import files 

For this session will include a live demonstration, using a small PHP web application and demo database (4 tables). Demonstration will show the data import into a Drupal 9 redesign of the PHP website.