Configuration import Pro

Every StoreMaster store can export its configuration and preview somebody else’s — those are free. Applying a previewed file is the Pro half.

Preview first, always

An import is two steps and cannot be one. You upload a file, StoreMaster tells you exactly what it contains and what it would change here, and only then can you apply it. There is no path that reads a file and rewrites your pricing in the same request.

The preview shows which modules the file would turn on, which are not in your build, how many rules it carries, which settings it touches, and — the part that matters most on a real migration — which products and categories it refers to that do not exist on this store.

Products are matched by SKU, categories by slug

An id on a staging site means nothing on a production one. Exports record a SKU for each product and a slug for each category, and the import resolves them against this store.

Anything it cannot resolve is reported by name before you apply. You then choose:

• Import anyway — rules whose targets have all vanished are skipped and listed. They are never retargeted at whatever object happens to hold that number here, which would silently point a discount at someone else’s product.
• Strict — the import refuses to run at all until the file and the store agree.

Applying either finishes or does nothing

The apply runs inside a single database transaction. If a rule in the middle of the file turns out to be invalid, if the request times out, if the server is restarted — the whole thing rolls back and your configuration is exactly as it was. There is no half-applied state to discover later.

StoreMaster checks it can actually make that promise before it starts. If any of its tables (or WordPress’s options table) uses a storage engine that cannot roll back, the import is refused rather than attempted. Diagnostics tells you the same thing before you try.

Retrying is safe

Rules are matched by their permanent id, so applying the same file twice converges instead of duplicating. If an apply fails you can fix the file and retry with the same preview. And if an apply succeeded, pressing the button again returns the original result rather than importing a second time — a double-click cannot import twice.

What an import will not do

• It will not switch modules off. A module the file does not mention is left exactly as you have it, because you may have turned it on since the export was taken.
• It will not exceed your permissions. Being allowed to run an import is not the same as being allowed to rewrite pricing. Each rule needs the capability for its own area, and rules you cannot change are skipped and named.
• It will not carry customers. Exports contain no customer, no email address and no licence key, so an import cannot bring any.

After an import

Run the diagnostics health checks. They are the fastest way to see whether a module the file enabled is missing something it needs on this store.