How to migrate: custom converter or direct database access?

[sinix]

Hi,

i am going to migrate a community site based on a proprietary custom software solution to Invision. The data i would like to migrate are:

• users
• user profiles
• forum kategories and posts
• personal private messages between individual users

I am not sure what's the best way to start migration: should i have a look at the converters available and adopt one of them for my own needs or wouldn't it be better to directly write the data to the database by executing custom sql statements. As this really is a custom solution for a one-time migration, i wonder if it wouldn't be overkill to follow the architecture of the available converters, however: which converter would be best to look at for migrating data as the one i mentioned?

Thanks in advance!

[bfarber]

I would use the converters as a starting point. They have the benefit that they can kick off background tasks afterwards to rebuild cached counts, rebuild search index, etc. which simplifies the actual conversion process.

No one converter is 'best'...just pick one to look at and use it as a base. Most of them will support the specific things you are converting.

[sinix]

Only had time to get back to this this week and it turned out to be quite easy to implement, after having a look at the other converters and grepping through the system components. Thanks, very much for your help. Indeed it turned out to be less hassle to setup a development environment for custom components and extension than i expected ... very cool!