Does anyone know of a way to import existing members (we're migrating from one site to another) without having to actually "purchase" each membership? There doesn't appear to be any way to just add a new member from the back end, and even if I add them myself by "purchasing" each membership, how do I generate a password for each member?

Hello,

Unfortunately, the current version RSMembership! has no importing capabilities, you will need to subscribe the users manually by going to Components > RSMembership! > Users > select your user and adding your desired membership subscription from the "Membership" tab. Your current Joomla! users will be listed in the "Users" tab, in order to add a new site user you will need to access the "User manager".

I know this info is probably too late for the original poster, but I recently, successfully imported members from AEC Access control component (similar in features to RSMembership, but much more complex and quite confusing). I had worked with AEC before and was totally overwhelmed by the multitude of screens and fields and options. If I didn't use it every single day I would be totally lost in it. Our client was intimidated by it as well and had not used it correctly since it was installed several years ago.

The whole reason for using RSMembership for this particular site is that our web development company uses a lot of RS stuff and we love how simple they are to use and how well they work.

This project had a HUGE database of several hundred members. Manual import by hand... one at a time... was NOT an option. Although at one point I had a terrible feeling that was going to be my only choice, but by hook or by crook I was going to do this through the database of user data.

I did this by first exporting the original user tables from AEC and just a few "sample" users data from RSMembership using phpmyadmin. I analyzed the table structure and found the "matching" bits I needed, basically, user ID membership ID and start and end dates. Those were the critical elements.

I then "stripped" the data using a text editor and regex and imported both into Excel.
After that I was able to move the data around in the AEC export to match the RSMembership fields. I changed all of the membership ID numbers to match the RSMemberships I had created ahead of time for my sample users table. I knew which memberships were which.

I then exported the Excel data and once again using a text editor and some fancy regex re-formated the data into an SQL file I uploaded with phpmyadmin and added to the RSMembership user tables.

This was NOT easy... but not quite as horrible as it sounds. In the long run it was WAY faster than trying to enter the members by hand considering I would have had to modify the start and expiration dates of the memberships for EACH OF THE HUNDREDS OF EXISTING MEMBERS and each membership process takes a specific amount of time... I could have been hand editing for days and days. The client needed to maintain the membership data and expiration dates to be sure they got paid and the members weren't "cheated".

The only truly difficult part was that RSMembership uses a UNIX time stamp in their database tables for membership start and end dates and AEC uses a "standard" type date time stamp. I got around this by using an Excel formula to convert the AEC time stamps to UNIX timestamps before export and conversion to SQL. Finding this silly simple Excel formula took longer than it should have. Apparently Excel uses a funky completely different form of UNIX time stamping starting at a different date/time than UNIX does. Pain in the arse.

Another tiny glitch was making sure the members actually matched up when comparing the user data to the RSMembership import.

The RSMembership data table only contains member ID numbers. The AEC data had member ID and names and usernames. In order to be certain the data was accurately transferred I matched up fields in Excel using formulas and did a quick visual scan based on names and other data just to make sure. This was all compared to the Joomla user table export as well. I had to "fudge" a few fields in the converted RSMembership data, basically setting some of the fields to a default "0" value because I had no idea what it was associated with in the RSMembership back end, but it still worked. The basic membership data was imported and was also "linked" to the Joomla users already imported...

... did I also mention this was a Joomla 1.5x to 1.7 migration at the same time? I had an AEC version that only worked in 1.5 and RSMembership for 1.7 (we couldn't afford both... so... we picked RSMembership on the hope I could convert the data). It was all hideously complicated but in the end all's well that ends well.

It would be great if RSMembership did have a data import feature if just so others can avoid this type of thing... although... now... I don't really need it as I will NEVER offer to do that kind of data transfer EVER again. It made my brain feel all mushy and thick after a while.

This would be a great sales feature for you guys... some way to move data from "competing products".

I'm still waiting on this feature. Hard to imagine why RSJoomla would expect us to manually enter hundreds or thousands of users by hand.

Hello:
I'm looking at the same task (import large db of users from AEC > RSM).
Can you point me in the direction/site where you found the unix timestamp conversion formula for Excel?
Thank you very much - and it's really a shame that RS Membership is still lacking import capabilities.
-Alan

5 years on and it still can't import users?

Is this very important feature ever going to be added?

You are more then welcome to add this as a feature request or vote on existing ones here:

https://www.rsjoomla.com/feedback.html

RSMembership! is an ongoing project and new features and improvements are being added all the time. Have a look at the product changelog:

https://www.rsjoomla.com/support/documentation/rsmembership-user-guide/changelog.html

I and others have repeatedly requested the ability to be able to add existing members (via the route you posted) without having to manually edit each and every one. With thousands of existing members, this makes this component useful primarily to new startups only.

Hmm.. this issue get even worse if you use custom fields. I managed to get all my user accounts migrated into memberships by writing queries (Which is stupid)

But then couldn't work out why the custom fields i had defined for a membership type were not showing up. Seems the custom field data is attached to the first transaction record. Which don't get created if you manually write the users. and if you tray and add the dat amanually - you cant. (WHY would you attach data about a memberships custom fields to a transaction record? IMO transaction records are nothing but log entries and as such can, and will probably be, deleted meaning you suddenly loose all the data for that subscription.)

RSJoomla - Mostly I love your stuff, but sometimes you make stupid decisions and your lacklustre response to things like importing users despite a 6 year old thread is making me look elsewhere.

7 years... I wish I came across this before I build an entire site based on this product.

I am so glad I discovered this thread before committing to purchasing RSMembers. A database that does not do simple import and export is not a database. Thank you for this discussion.

Due to the lack of a response I'm assuming nothing has been done here?