XF 1.5 Convert vB Usergroups to xF User Groups

Jim McClain

Member
I am converting my vBulletin 3.8 forum to xenForo 1.5 this weekend. I'm a little concerned about how my current usergroups will be transitioned to the xF way of doing groups.

I use the usergroups Administrators, Moderators and Pro Members as primary usergroups. All other usergroups are additional usergroups. If I understand the xF way of doing things, this is the wrong way. I think the preference is to have all members in the primary user group, Registered, and all other user groups are additional groups. Is this correct? Or is Administrators the exception? Any other exceptions?

I don't know how the conversion from vB usergroups to xF user groups goes, but it seems a distinct possibility that all my primary usergroup members will be converted to the Registered group and they will have to be re-added to the Pro Member group after the conversion. They would, however, still be in any additional user group they were in previous to the conversion, but their permissions would have to be reconfigured. That would present a big problem. You see, members in the current primary usergroup, Pro Member, are manually placed in that group based on specific information provided by the member to the staff. It is not an automated process because it is too easy to cheat the system.

The way I see it is, I have been doing it wrong in vB for 11 years. But I think I can fix it.

  • In vB, create a new usergroup called Professional based off the Pro Member usergroup, with the same permissions.
  • Create a new promotion that will promote all existing in the usergroup, Pro Member, to the Professional usergroup as an Additional Usergroup 1 day after registration date.
  • Run the cron that processes the promotion.
  • Delete the original usergroup, Pro Member, which causes everyone in that group to revert to the Registered usergroup.
  • Delete the promotion and continue adding members to the Professional usergroups manually, as was done with Pro Member group, except this time they are added as an additional group.
This way moves all Pro members to an additional usergroup with the same permissions and changes their primary group to Registered, as is done in XF. So, even if I have to manually configure all the usergroup permissions after the conversion to XF, at least my pro members will still be in both the registered and the professional user groups, as well as any other additional groups they were in, right? They won't have to rejoin and I can figure out how I can manage new registrants after the conversion to XF.

Sound like a good plan? Would I do the same thing, essentially, for the staff usergroups? Administrator (me)?

Thanks for any guidance you can offer.
 
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I think overall you're going about it the right way, but there's probably a more straight forward approach than relying on user group promotions.

XenForo has the Batch Update Users function.

1) Find all members in the "Pro Member" primary user group and click "Search"
2) Change "Set primary user group" to "Registered"
3) Change "Add secondary user group" to "Pro Member"
4) Click "Update Users"

Repeat the process for any other groups as desired. The only users that Batch Update Users function can't be used on is Super Admins. Assuming this only applies to one or two users (likely your own account, at least), you will just need to change your own group membership manually.
 
I haven't converted to xenForo yet, so I can't use that batch update. I did, however, convert all my users to a single primary usergroup, Registered Users, and those who previously belonged to other usergroups as primary groups, now belong to those groups as additional usergroups. I hadn't gotten a reply and I was a little anxious to do these preparations for the conversion to xF tomorrow night.
 
We don't actually guarantee a staff response on the forum, and I neglected to do a sweep of unanswered threads yesterday. Generally, if a response is required quite quickly or a reply is taking longer than usual, either submit a ticket or bump the thread.

Nothing wrong with the approach you've taken though so seems like you're all set. Good luck with the conversion, let us know how you get on :)
 
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