Speaker and Sessions CSV Import

[DeveloperWil]

Components / Tools

Speakers and Sessions custom post type import

Description

Please add a dedicated CSV import tool for Speakers and Sessions custom post types. I've just spent hours importing that data into our WordCamp site. Most of that could have been avoided by having a simple import tool.

Basic information cold be imported to save hours; post title, post content, featured image, expert, gravatar email, wordpress.org username, presented at WC before.

For example:

Dashboard > Speakers > Import CSV
Dashboard > Sessions > Import CSV

Stakeholders

WordCamp organisers

How does this new feature contribute to the goals

Frees up WC organisers to focus on the conference, not on the website.

Acceptance Criteria

Being able to import basic information for speakers from a CSV file and populate the Speakers CPT.
Post Title, Featured Image, Post Content, WordPress Username, Gravatar Email, Excerpt, Presented at WordCamp Before etc.

Similar for Sessions CPT.

Priority

Priority for me is low because I've already spend hours manually typing in the data but for every other future WordCamp organiser this will be high on their list.

[malgrauk]

I think this is a wider item which also has a similar request for importing data for the Volunteers CPT here - #903

There's a lot of use cases for importing and exporting specific items on the website (e.g. sessions, organisers, etc). There is a workaround which @ePascalC worked on for WCEU last year to import all organisers and speakers, I think it was importing via the native importer as an XML file(?)

[ePascalC]

For WCEU last year we have indeed created a PHP script that takes CSV as input and transforms it into an XML that then can be used within the standard importer. We also have the other way around to transform the XML into CSV in case you want to start from info you already had in the previous WordCamp. It works for most of the different types like organisers, speakers, etc.
We plan this year to improve it and (if possible) put it at the disposal of all WordCamp organisers.

But having it natively included would indeed help enormously and reduce the need to do extra tasks outside of a WC site.