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   1  <!-- $Id: about.html,v 1.1.2.2 2009/08/11 19:19:15 weitzman Exp $ -->
   2  
   3  <p>The Migrate module provides a flexible framework for migrating content into Drupal 
   4  from other sources (e.g., when converting a web site from another CMS to Drupal). 
   5  Out-of-the-box, support for creating Drupal nodes, fields, comments, url aliases, users+profiles and roles are included. Hooks permit migration of other types of content.</p>
   6  
   7  <p>The combination of the <a href="http://drupal.org/project/tw">Table Wizard</a> and 
   8  Migrate modules is designed to support a migration process along these lines:</p>
   9  
  10  <ol>
  11  <li>Import - Table Wizard can be used to import external data into tables in your
  12  Drupal database. Any tables in your Drupal database, or in other databases on the
  13  same server, can be made available to views for review and migration.</li>
  14  <li>Analysis - Table Wizard performs analysis of table data (ranges, sizes, etc.), and
  15  supports collaborative documentation of table fields.</li>
  16  <li>Content sets - Create Views which represent the different source records that you wish to migrate. The Views utilize the Vies integration you just created with Table Wizard.</li>
  17  <li>Migration - Migrate takes rows from the content sets creates
  18  Drupal objects from them. Migration is reversible - migrated data can be quickly backed out and
  19  migrated again. A dashboard is provided to easily manage the process. Background processing
  20  via cron is supported for large migrations.</li>
  21  <li>Auditing - Errors and other conditions flagged during migration are flagged and can be reviewed
  22  in Views). Also, Migrate maintains mapping tables from the source data to the
  23  resulting Drupal objects, enabling the creation of comparison views.</li>
  24  </ol>
  25  
  26  <h3>Status</h3>
  27  
  28  <p>Migrate is <b>nearly ready</b> for official release. There is currently 
  29  <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/node/21338">some discussion</a> in the 
  30  <a href="http://groups.drupal.org/content-migration-import-and-export">Content migration, 
  31  import, and export</a> group on future directions for the various migration and 
  32  import/export-related modules which may affect the design of the migrate module.</p>
  33  
  34  <p>Finally, I consider a suite of simpletests a prerequisite to release.</p>
  35  
  36  <h3>Acknowledgements</h3>
  37  
  38  <p>Much of the Migrate module functionality was sponsored by 
  39  <a href="http://www.genomeweb.com">GenomeWeb</a> and 
  40  <a href="http://www.economist.com/">The Economist</a>. The original code was based 
  41  on <a href="http://drupal.org/project/node_import">node_import</a>.</p>