Most efficient way to turn form data into posts or pages?
-
Hi, I’m posting this again because for some reason the first person to reply to me before closed the comments, which is REALLY frustrating and has happened to me twice now. Our page/club is volunteer-run, so it takes a while for me to reply but I will.
</hr>
Hi, our club is putting together a member services directory similar to http://redwoodwriters.org/business-directory/?wpbdp_view=all_listings
I’m gathering the data with a form, which can be exported as a spreadsheet.
My question is, what’s the most organized and efficient way of translating this data into WordPress content? Like, is there a plugin that exports form data as posts or pages?
A complicating factor: we don’t have a child theme, and our theme doesn’t have a Portfolio option, or any kind of custom page types. Ideally I’d use WordPress’s taxonomy options to separate the content, right? But I think without a child theme, the only/best way to do that would be to create a new category for Member Services and to create sub-categories for services offered. But that would mean each entry would be a new page, and that would take longer than putting all of the directory info on one page. Then again we do not update our theme, so maybe not a problem to add custom code..?
I could also use advice on any tools that might exist for translating form data or spreadsheet data into WP. I can just copy paste manually, but it seems like this is exactly the sort of thing that computers and websites can do more efficiently than I can (after all, what is WordPress itself but a bunch of scripts that are fetching data from a database?). Since we are a volunteer-run organization, I’d rather put in the work upfront to make it as easy as possible to maintain. Are there any tools for pulling data from a spreadsheet into a WP page? Or some custom code I can use for this?
Also I am way more experienced with self-hosted WP sites, so I am not sure what the limitations are to customizing our account, or whether we need to upgrade to a premium account, or what relevant features may be available. (NOTE THE PREVIOUS TIME I POSTED THIS, MY POST WAS TAGGED “NOT A WP.COM SITE.” THIS IS *NOT* A SELF-HOSTED SITE. I’VE BEEN USING WP FOR OVER TEN YEARS I KNOW THE DIFF.)
Finally I should add that I’m not a coder, though I do know HTML and CSS I’m just starting to scratch the surface in learning WP themes. So if your advice requires coding I may need to be pointed to some cut-and-paste code I can use.
As you can see there’s a lot to tackle here so any advice you can offer is appreciated! I’m invested in getting this right, so please don’t close this topic when you reply. I will keep at it until a solution is found, and I want that info to be available for the community. (But I also know not to reply to my own post, so I will wait for first reply.)
The blog I need help with is cwc-berkeley.org.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Do you understand that you cannot create a directory type of site here ate wordpress.COM?
When we need Staff help with issues Volunteers cannot resolve like this one we type modlook into the sidebar tags on our forum threads. I did that for you. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Then we subscribe to this thread so we are notified when they respond. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.
-
Hi @calwritersclub, threads here in the forums will automatically close after 30 days of inactivity, which is what happened with the other thread. That is done to keep our queues from becoming overwhelming for those of us working the forums. It was not intentionally closed.
See my previous reply in the now closed thread at https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/best-way-to-create-directory-based-on-formspreadsheet-data?replies=2#post-2905971 on some ways to embed spreadsheets into your site. If the spreadsheets have many columns, this can be a problem for users on smaller screens, such as small tablets and phones. Spreadsheets with only a few columns typically work pretty well.
About the only way I can think of to do something similar to the site you referenced would be to use Page Jumps and then create a list of target items at the top (a, b, c, etc.). All of the directory information could be in that one page, or you could also have the various pages for each section (a, b, c, d, etc.) and then use external page jumps. Our Page Jumps support page includes information on making internal and external page jumps. On each individual page, you could also include a page jump back to the original listing page, or you could repeat the list of target links at the top of each and every page. Once you had one page done with all the target links at the top, you could do a copy/paste from the HTML/Text tab in the page editor and paste into the other pages in the HTML/Text tab.
I’m afraid this is going to be a pretty large project.
There are directory plugins for self-hosted WordPress installations, and here at WordPress.com, you can install plugins, if you have the WordPress.com Business plan upgrade. This is a recent feature added to the Business Plan.
- The topic ‘Most efficient way to turn form data into posts or pages?’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 