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Below you will find our ParrotWP™ documentation., which covers installation, syncing, and advanced features.
LET’S GET STARTED
1. Purchase ParrotWP™
To get started, you will need to download your plugin files and have a valid license code from ParrotWP.com. You can find these on our website in the My Account section by clicking on Downloads. Make sure you also have a valid Cadmium account with access to the Education Harvestor API. You will need this API key for later use (a separate fee is required; see your Cadmium rep for details).
Once you have all of these items, go ahead and log into your WordPress system. Next:
- Click on Plugins
- Click Add New
- Click Upload Plugin
- Click Choose File and select the ParrotWP labeled file
- Click Install Now
- Click Activate
You will need to repeat these steps for the Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF) plugin, (if you do not use this plugin already) which is packaged with your purchase.
2. Enter License Codes for ParrotWP
After purchasing ParrotWP™ you will receive the necessary ParrotWP™ license codes in the My Account section. To retrieve them in My Account, first, log in and click on Orders, click on View under Actions, and scroll down a bit to see your license code (in green).
In your WordPress dashboard, click on ParrotWP™ in your WordPress sidebar menu and enter your license information to activate your plugin. Once ParrotWP™ is activated you will see a slew of new menu items added to your WordPress sidebar menu underneath ParrotWP™.
- All Presentations is a custom post type added to your WordPress installation and will be the designated location for any data passed through the Cadmium API.
- Presenters are a Presenters data subset to store your presenters separate from your All Presentations list. (NEW in 2.1+)
3. Importing Your Custom Fields
Also added to your sidebar menu, after installing Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF), is a new menu item labeled ACF. Within this next step, you will need to do a few things:
- Enter your Advanced Custom Fields Pro license code by clicking on Custom Fields and then selecting Updates from the drop-down menu.
- All support inquiries for ACF need to go through our support portal. Do not contact the ACF plugin developer. They will not provide any support to you.
- Locate the ParrotWP-ACF-Items.zip file in your ParrotWP™ packaged files. This file contains all the available Cadmium fields (both Event and Presenter fields) in the Education Harvestor API.
- Unzip this zip file and locate two .json files in the Import Into ACF folder
- Click on Custom Fields and select Tools from the menu.
- Click on Choose File under Import Field Groups and upload (one at a time) the event_fields_import_acf.json and presenter_fields_import_acf.json files.
NOTE: If you already use the pro version of this plugin on your website, don’t install this plugin over your existing version. There are no differences between our version and the version available on the ACF website.
If you’re updating from ParrotWP™ 1.0, upload the new presenter_fields_import_acf.json file only. There are no new fields in the event_fields_import_acf.json file.
4. Sync Your Data Once
Now that all the plugin files are installed, and all license codes are activated, it is time to sync your data. In the WordPress sidebar menu, click on ParrotWP™ > Settings and enter your Cadmium API key and click Save Changes.
Once the changes are saved, click ParrotWP™ > Import. Next choose Update all entries, under Update Mode, select Yes, under the next option, then select Yes next to deleting entries deleted from Cadmium. Lastly, depending on your web hosting, choose how many presentations you want to import at a time. We recommend 5-10. Then select Run Import Presentations first and then select Run Import Presenters.
Below a progress bar will be shown showing the progress of your import alongside how many presentations are being imported.
5. Visit ParrotWP in the menu
After a few minutes, click on ParrotWP™ > All Presentations to see the results of your import from the Cadmium Education Harvestor API.* You will see all the presentation names listed as WordPress Post Titles. Next, click on ParrotWP™ > Presenters to see a list of all of your presenters. When you click on any entries, you will see a long list of custom field data populated with your Cadmium field data.
Congrats! Your data is now in WordPress.
* Depending on the number of presentations being imported, you may have to wait longer to see a complete list of your presentations. Do not leave the import page during import or you run the risk of importing your data incorrectly.
Advanced Options
ParrotWP™ has built-in functionality to automatically sync your data through the Cadmium API using the WordPress CRON system. We recommend using a CRON plugin like WP Crontrol to control the syncing functionality.
Once you have identified an appropriate CRON plugin, you will want to create a new PHP event in that plugin labeled:
- Parrot_new_cron – For Presentations
Parrot_import_presenters_cron – For Presenters (requires ParrotWP™ 2.1+)
Then set your timer for how frequently you want this feature to run.
The automated sync can be triggered as often as the plugin options offer and we recommend using the Import function in step 4 for emergency updates only.
Once your initial sync takes place, ParrotWP™ only looks for updates; it will not reimport all your data again. We have found subsequent imports take about 1/3 of the time of the initial sync, meaning quicker updates when you add/modify data.
ParrotWP™ uses Advanced Custom Fields Pro (ACF) to handle and manage all of the data pulled from the Cadmium Education Harvestor API. Fortunately, ACF can utilize shortcodes to pull information into your layouts. If you have an experienced developer that understands “loops” within WordPress they may utilize these shortcodes to create repeatable elements within a layout.
If you’re looking for a partner to develop your layout, we recommend David James Group.
