By tuwilliger on

Hi,

I'm working with a client who is interested in converting their Ning 2.0 platform to Drupal 7 with Advanced Forum plugin.

As far as I can tell, the best route is to export the data using Ning's Network Archiver tool and then use Drupal's Migrate tool to import. We would then look to add modules to bring the build up to the previous Ning level (they use blogs, groups, media, etc).

However, a lot of the advice I've found seems to be older so I'm wondering if this is still the best method. Likewise, does anyone have any idea of how much developer time this would take to do (ballpark)? The client has around 35,000 / 27,000 members (2 language platforms) and 22,000 / 6000 discussions (2 language platforms).

Thanks in advance.

Comments

drummondf’s picture

drummondf commented

Hello, glad to have you to Drupal!

Yes, you will want to export data to the most raw format possible, I suggest CSV, and then I would recommend importing with the Feeds module instead of Migrate - I personally find it much simpler to navigate and requiring less Drupal-centric coding knowledge.

You will want to pay close attention to the parsing section, and ensure you are mapping fields to the right fields in your desired content type.

Cheers!

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hanness’s picture

hanness
Primary language German
commented

hi, it would be great to hear how you did it and what challenges you had. we want to migrate a smaller site with around 3000 users. and as you wrote it´s hard to find information which is younger than 3-5 years..

thanks for news :)

wusel’s picture

wusel commented

If you want to import the connection between members and there discussions it may be better to use migrate than feeds.

You can look at Import new users and their Profile2 fields from one CSV file (https://www.drupal.org/node/1285276), to study how you can do that in an other environment.
But you have to code, if you want to use migrate.

I don't know Ning, so I can not help you to do the import and the coding for it.

Good luck!

Wusel

james__’s picture

james__ commented

Did you get anywhere with this? I need to do the same with my Ning site

Thanks in advance

J.R.’s picture

J.R. commented

Edit (2016-Oct-2): I migrated to Drupal 8.1.1 in may 2016.

I now also published the D8 migration with some simple sample data.
The destination of the D8 migration starter kit is pure D8.1 core.

Details see:
https://www.drupal.org/node/2810683

---
I created a (free, GPL) starter kit for migrating ning 2.0 to drupal 7:
I am fearing to have to migrate to ning 3.0, which misses features I need

It's
a) C++ preprocessor (ningjson2csv), which also tries to relocate links
b) a migrate_ning drupal module for importing the csv into
c) a very simple drupal 7.36 (emergency backup) site.
It does not handle videos and audio. It does not use OG,
it maps group forums to common forums and creates
a group node for catching the comments (enough for me,
but might/should of course be used differently).

When reviewing/using this, please consider that I
was (am still am) completely new to Drupal, so the simple
site might seem laughable to you, but for me it's a very
recomforting backup because it already does most of what is
needed in my very small local gardener community.
Most of the transformation is done in C++, which I know.
Advantage of preprocessor separate from migrate_ning:
might also be used for destinations other than drupal 7.

Note, that until now, this was only tested with my very small network
and a network of 3000 users with 3000 nodes and 3000 comments.

I posted it here: http://www.r5c.de

Hope it helps.

jdg239@psu.edu’s picture

jdg239@psu.edu commented

We are contemplating a transition from Ning 3.0 to Drupal...and are not really seeing the way forward to do this. I hope to be pointed to some resources for this.
-JG