Uploading Old Reviews

Yes – I studied all your screenshots in-depth before I asked for assistance. And I did see that csv line, which doesn’t address my queries above, but thanks though. Relevant replies to my questions asked above would be preferred, if you get a chance? Screenshots are great, but they don’t respond well to questions. Again, I’m sorry for the bother.

I need to upload a few hundred band reviews from years gone by, to bulk up our 20 bands’ bandpages a bit with some good 5 star reviews on our site.

You will need to use the “Import Third Party Reviews” tool that is provided by Site Reviews (see the screenshot above).

Is there a fairly straightforward way to upload old text reviews (even if it’s just to aggregate stars without the text reviews for now) for say 20 different bands that will reflect the dates from years gone by, or will they only all display the dates on the day I upload them?

You will need to use the “Import Third Party Reviews” tool that is provided by Site Reviews (see the screenshot above). Imported reviews will use the dates you provide.

(I don’t have a csv document prepared – do I need one?).

Yes.

Also, will they all appear to be from me?!?

Only if you do not include a name and email for each review in your CSV file. I will remove the automatic name/email fallback for imported reviews in the next update, but for now, you will need to include the name and email when you import reviews.

Also, as an option, if I don’t upload the full text review, but only upload the number of star reviews each band has had over the years, can this just be aggregated next to the band’s bandname at the top of their band page?

Only the rating, date, and content review fields are actually required when importing. Once you import reviews, you will need to bulk-assign them to your band pages and then you can use the shortcode/block options to display them however you like.

See also: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/easy-way-to-import-wp-comments-as-reviews/#post-13772844

Spectacular reply.. really – thanks so much. Immensely clearer to my peanut brain now. ??

If you are planning on bulk-assigning your imported reviews to specific band pages, I recommend that you import each group of reviews separately, and bulk assign between each import.

I was wondering about that – thank you so much – no doubt will save me a day or two in fixing my errors – it’s hard being a tech gumby! ??

Update to v5.3.4 and imports will no longer fallback to the logged in user’s name and email.

Got it! Thanks again mate. ??

I’m so sorry mate – after a week of working on making an Excel CSV file from scratch on my Macbook with all the info required, I figure I must be doing it wrong? I just get an error message from the “Import Third Party Reviews” tool, where it says “0 reviews were imported. 35 entries were skipped.”. Clearly my csv file is rubbish – perhaps the headers across the top of the columns aren’t distinguished? Not sure how to upload a screenshot of it here, but I don’t see any reference to this error message in your FAQ’s and solutions. Any ideas on what to try?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by stumur.

Send me the first 10 rows in a csv file (you can use the Contact Support section on the help page) and I’ll let you know what is incorrect.

Also this may help: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/easy-way-to-import-wp-comments-as-reviews/#post-13772844

Mate, your support efforts are fantastic! Thank you! Emailed just now.

The import tool requires the date be in the yyyy-mm-dd format as shown in the Import Third Party Reviews tool instructions.

Fix the dates and the import should work.

Thanks mate. I think I’ve fixed the dates ok, but still getting the same error msg. Here’s the csv text file version – the date format looks ok, yes?

avatar,content,date,email,ip_address,is_pinned,name,rating,response,title
,”Could you please pass on a massive thank you to Anthems for playing at our wedding on Saturday _ they were simply amazing!”,2018/02/18,[email protected],152.168.1.1,TRUE,Clare & Steve D,5,Thank you Clare – great to hear you loved the band and had a fab evening! Congrats once again!,Best Wedding Band Ever! (etc..)

Anyway, I’ll give it another fiddle, see if I can crack it. Thanks again.