This topic describes the initial steps of the Kentico Import Toolkit wizard.

 

1. You can launch Kentico Import Toolkit from the Windows Start menu. In the Kentico CMS program group, open the Kentico CMS Utilities folder and choose Kentico Import Toolkit.

 

 

2. On the initial screen of the wizard, you can choose from the following options:

 

•Start new import session - starts a new import session where you can configure all the options of the import. In each of the configuration steps, you can click the Save profile button to save all the configuration done until that point. The configuration is saved as an .iprofile file in a destination of your choice.

•Load import profile - By selecting the Load import profile option, you can load an .iprofile file that you created when importing a new session. All the configuration you have done prior to saving the configuration file will be pre-filled automatically.

 

 

Click Next to proceed when selected.

 

3. In Step 1, choose the root folder of the project into which you want to import your data. Either enter the path manually, or click Browse and search for the folder within your file system structure. In order to proceed, you also need to turn the check-box below the field on. By doing this, you confirm that you have performed a backup of your project so that you can roll back any potential damage caused by the import.

 

 

Click Next to proceed to the following step.

 

4. In Step 2, select the data type that will be used to store the imported data in Kentico CMS. You can make the selection by clicking the Select data type to import drop-down list and the optional drop-down lists below it:

 

•Custom table items - imports the data into a custom table selected in the Import to custom table drop-down list.

•On-line form items - imports the data as Form records of the on-line form selected in the Import to on-line form drop-down list.

•Objects - imports the data as Kentico CMS objects of a type selected in the Import as radio buttons. Three options are offered:

▪Typical objects - offers a set of typically used objects.

▪All data objects - includes all data objects except for many to many relationship objects.

▪Many to many relationships -  provides a selection of objects with many to many relationship such as contact list, group permissions and workflow step roles.

 

Additionally, you can reduce the selection of objects offered in the drop-down lists by adding optional keys to the ImportToolkit.exe.config file. You can find the configuration file in <Kentico CMS installation folder>\Bin (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\KenticoCMS\<version number>\Bin). The keys accept object ClassNames, separated by semicolons, as their values. You can find ClassNames, e.g. in the CMS_Class table of your Kentico CMS database.

 

Using the following key you can restrict the selection offered in the Typical objects drop-down list to Product, Manufacturer and Supplier only.

 

 

By adding the following key, you can modify the selection of the All data objects drop-down list to contain only Newsletter, Newsletter subscriber and Newsletter issue.

 

 

You can limit the selection offered in the Many to many relationships drop-down list to Workflow user, Workflow step and Workflow step user with the following key.

 

 

•Object attachments (metafiles) - imports the data as metafiles of Kentico CMS objects. The Attach to object type drop-down list offers a selection of object types to which the metafiles will be attached.

 

By adding the following key to the Import toolkit's configuration file, you can restrict the selection of the Attach to object type drop-down list to Newsletter issue and Newsletter email template only.

 

 

•Documents - imports the data as documents of the type selected in the Import as drop-down list. If you enable the Automatically publish documents under workflow option, imported documents will be automatically published when a workflow applies to them. By enabling the Import as products option, only product document types will be offered in the Import as drop-down list and E-commerce products will be created together with the product documents.

•Document attachments - imports the data as attachments of a document specified in Step 6 of the wizard.

•Resource strings - imports the data as resource strings into a culture selected in the Import as drop-down list.

 

With data types that can be site‑related, the Import data to site drop-down list is displayed. Using this drop-down list, you can select a site to which the imported objects should be assigned. Where applicable, you can also choose (global objects) from the drop-down list to import the data as global objects not bound to a specific website.

 

Using the Import options radio buttons, you can determine the tool's behavior when it detects that some of the imported data already exists in Kentico CMS. Existing objects can either be detected automatically (based on code name or GUID), or by a WHERE condition specified in Step 6 of the wizard.

 

•Always insert as new objects/documents - all imported data will be inserted as new objects/documents, even if some of the data exists in Kentico CMS.

•Import new and overwrite existing objects/documents - all imported data will be inserted. Objects that already exist in Kentico CMS will be overwritten by the newly imported equivalents. This option must be selected if you wish to import new culture versions of an existing document (node).

•Skip existing objects/documents - existing objects/documents will be skipped and only new ones will be imported.

 

 

Once selected, click Next to proceed to the following step.

 

5. In Step 3, specify the source of the imported data. Using the radio buttons, you can choose to import from:

 

•MS SQL database - imports data from a specified MS SQL database.

▪Server - name of the database server containing the source database.

▪Database name - name of the source database.

▪Use integrated Windows authentication - the current user's Windows account will be used to log on to the database server.

▪Use SQL server authentication - logon credentials filled into the Username and Password fields below will be used to log on to the database server.

•XML file - imports data from an XML file specified in the field below.

•CSV file - imports data from a CSV file specified in the field below.

•XLSX file - imports data from an Excel spreadsheet specified in the field below.

 

 

Once selected, click Next to proceed to the following step.

 

The rest of the wizard differs depending on the selected source of data. Click the links above to learn more about the following step once you select the respective source of data.