Import & Export
Overview
Locations → Import & Export moves your list of locations in and out of the site:
- Import a spreadsheet of stores, dealers or offices to add them all at once, or to update addresses, phone numbers and hours across the list.
- Export every location as a spreadsheet (CSV) to edit or keep, or as a JSON file to copy them to another Dirigible site.
If you've renamed locations under Locations → Settings (to Stores or Dealers, say), the menu and screen use your name. You can also get there from the Import and Export buttons at the top of the Locations list.
You need an Editor or Administrator account. Importing also needs permission to upload files, because images are downloaded into the Media Library.
Moving from The Events Calendar? Its venues can be read straight from the site, no spreadsheet needed: see Move venues from The Events Calendar.
Export
- Go to Locations → Import & Export and stay on the Export tab.
- Choose Spreadsheet (CSV) or JSON.
- Turn on Include drafts and private ones if you want those too.
- Select Download export file.
Import a spreadsheet
The quickest start is Download a blank spreadsheet on the Export tab: it has every column with the right header.
- Fill in one row per location. Only Name is required.
- Save it as CSV and drop it on the Import tab.
- Check the preview. Every row says New, Update (naming what changes), Skip or Error, and you can untick any of them.
- Select Import. If it's interrupted, open the page again and select Resume import.
Columns
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Name | The location's name. Also read from a column called Store, Dealer or Location. |
| Street address, City, State, ZIP code | The address shown on the location and its card. |
| Latitude, Longitude | Where the pin goes on the map, like 43.0745 and -89.3893. See below. |
| Phone, Email, Website | Contact details. An email that isn't valid is left out and the preview says so. |
| Short description | The short text used in location lists. |
| Map embed | An embed code pasted from Google Maps, for sites that don't use the built-in map. |
| Sticky | Yes to list the location first in Location Search results. |
| Hide from Location Search | Yes to leave the location out of Location Search (its page and Locations blocks still show it). Without the column, or with it empty, new locations show in the search. |
| Facebook, Twitter / X, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube | Profile addresses or handles. |
| Regions, Types | Names separated by ` |
| Image | The web address of a photo. It's downloaded into the Media Library. |
| Content, Excerpt, Order, Status, Slug | The page content, its summary, a sort number, Published/Draft, and the last part of its web address. |
Map pins need a latitude and longitude
When a row has a Latitude and Longitude, the location gets its map pin straight away. When it doesn't, the import looks its address up (street address, city, state and ZIP code) and places the pin, on Google Maps and OpenStreetMap sites alike. It's free: no key, no account and no billing.
- US addresses are looked up with the US Census Geocoder, a free public service of the US Census Bureau.
- Other addresses, and US ones the Census doesn't find, are looked up with OpenStreetMap (map data © OpenStreetMap contributors). OpenStreetMap asks for no more than one lookup a second, so the import keeps to that: a big import of locations without coordinates takes longer, and each batch looks up only a few addresses this way.
The preview tells you which rows will be looked up. Nothing is looked up until you select Import, and an address found once is remembered for 30 days. When an address isn't found, or a batch runs out of time for lookups, that location comes in without a pin and the import's results list it. Undo the import and import the file again to look the rest up: addresses already found are remembered, so it's quick.
To place a missing pin afterwards, open the location and find its address in the Map panel (Find the address above, or search it). Many spreadsheet tools can also add coordinates for a column of addresses, and an export from another Dirigible site already has them.
Updating locations that are already on the site
A row updates an existing location when it has the same web address (Slug), or the same name and street address. Chains often have many locations with the same name, so a row with a different street address is added as a new location rather than changing another one. A row with a name but no street address matches by name alone.
Only what's in the spreadsheet changes. An empty cell never clears anything. Updated locations keep their status and web address.
Undo an import
When an import finishes, select Undo this import. It deletes the locations it added, the images it downloaded and the regions and types it added, and puts every location it updated back exactly as it was. Anything edited after the import is left as it is. Undo stays available for 7 days.
