Import / Export — Plugixa Testimonial

Move testimonials in and out of the plugin in two formats: JSON and CSV. Useful for migrating from other testimonial plugins, backing up content, syncing staging and production, and bulk editing in a spreadsheet.

Export

From the admin

1. Go to Plugixa Testimonial → Testimonials.
2. Select the rows you want (or don’t select any to export all).
3. Bulk actions → Export (JSON or CSV).

Formats

Format	Use case
JSON	Full fidelity — every field, every custom field, every translation link. Import it back for a loss-less restore.
CSV	Spreadsheet-friendly — for bulk editing in Excel or Google Sheets, then re-importing.

JSON structure

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "exported_at": "2026-04-17T10:30:00Z",
  "plugin_version": "1.x.x",
  "categories": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Product Reviews",
      "slug": "product-reviews",
      "description": "...",
      "display_order": 0,
      "translation_group": "abc-123...",
      "language_code": "en"
    }
  ],
  "testimonials": [
    {
      "id": 42,
      "client_name": "Jane Doe",
      "client_role": "CEO",
      "client_company": "Acme Inc",
      "testimonial_text": "<p>Excellent service...</p>",
      "rating": 5,
      "is_featured": true,
      "video_url": "https://youtu.be/...",
      "website_url": "https://acme.com",
      "status": "approved",
      "display_order": 0,
      "source": "manual",
      "categories": ["product-reviews", "enterprise"],
      "custom_fields": {
        "industry": "SaaS",
        "team_size": "50-200"
      },
      "translation_group": "def-456...",
      "language_code": "en",
      "created_at": "2026-01-15T10:30:00"
    }
  ],
  "custom_field_definitions": [ ... ]
}

CSV columns

Default columns:

client_name, client_role, client_company, testimonial_text, rating,
website_url, video_url, status, is_featured, display_order,
source, language_code, translation_group, created_at,
categories   (pipe-delimited slugs, e.g. "product-reviews|enterprise")

Plus one column per custom field: cf__{field_key} (e.g., cf__industry).

Import

From the admin

1. Go to Plugixa Testimonial → Testimonials → Import.
2. Upload a JSON or CSV file (drag-and-drop or file picker).
3. Review the preview — you’ll see how many items will be created vs updated.
4. Click Import.

Import behavior

• New items — created with status = draft by default (override in the import dialog).
• Existing items — matched by translation_group (JSON) or by exact client_name + testimonial_text match (CSV). If a match exists, the row is updated.
• Categories — auto-created if a slug in the file doesn’t exist.
• Custom fields — values are set for existing field definitions; new keys create new text definitions (rename the type afterwards).
• Translations — translation_group UUIDs are preserved so links survive the round-trip.
• Video URLs — copied as-is.

Conflict handling

Conflict	Behavior
Duplicate slug (category)	Suffixed with -2, -3, etc.
Missing category	Created.
Missing custom-field definition	Created as text type.
Invalid HTML in testimonial_text	Stripped via wp_kses_post.
Photo URL	Not imported — photos must be re-attached manually from the Media Library.

REST API

# Export JSON
GET /wp-json/plugixatestimonial/v1/import-export/export?format=json

# Export CSV (specific category)
GET /wp-json/plugixatestimonial/v1/import-export/export?format=csv&category_id=5

# Import
POST /wp-json/plugixatestimonial/v1/import-export/import
Content-Type: multipart/form-data
# field "file" containing the JSON/CSV

All endpoints require manage_options + Pro license.

Migrating from other testimonial plugins

Source plugin	Approach
Strong Testimonials	Export via its native CSV, rename columns to match Plugixa’s, import.
Easy Testimonials	Export as CSV, map person_name → client_name, person_company → client_company, import.
WP Customer Reviews	Most data lives in wp_comments — export with WP-CLI, transform to JSON, import.
Custom post type testimonials	WP-CLI: wp post list --post_type=testimonial --format=json → transform to Plugixa’s JSON shape → POST to /import.

For all migrations, we recommend:

1. Stage on a dev site first.
2. Back up the DB before running a production import.
3. Review a sample batch (20–50) before full import.
4. Photos must be re-attached — do that last, after content is imported and approved.

CLI (advanced)

If you have WP-CLI access:

# Export all testimonials to JSON
wp plugixa-testimonial export --format=json > testimonials-backup.json

# Import
wp plugixa-testimonial import testimonials-backup.json

CLI commands are registered when the plugin boots in CLI context.

Hooks

Hook	Type	Purpose
plugixatestimonial_export_data	filter	Modify the payload before serialization.
plugixatestimonial_import_row	filter	Modify each row before insert/update.
plugixatestimonial_before_import	action	Before the batch starts.
plugixatestimonial_after_import	action	After the batch completes ($stats).
plugixatestimonial_import_conflict	filter	Override conflict resolution per row.

Troubleshooting

Import stopped midway

Large imports time out. Split into smaller batches (< 500 rows per file). The process resumes cleanly on the next run — no duplicates if translation_groups are present.

CSV with non-English characters mangles

Re-save the CSV as UTF-8 with BOM in Excel (or --encoding=utf-8 in LibreOffice). The importer assumes UTF-8.

Export returns 500 / blank

Most often a memory or timeout issue with large exports. In wp-config.php, raise WP_MAX_MEMORY_LIMIT to 512M and PHP max_execution_time to 300. For truly large datasets (10k+ rows), export per-category or per-language.

Photos are missing after import

Photos are not part of import/export — they stay in the Media Library as WP attachments. After importing testimonials, re-attach photos manually by editing each testimonial.

For a photo-preserving migration, you need to also export/import wp_posts rows with post_type=attachment and the wp-content/uploads directory separately.

Related

• Testimonials Management
• Categories
• Custom Fields
• Hooks Reference