Export of data collected using Poor Guys Swiss Knife

Hello Stu-TDW.

All data that you collect with your custom checkout form fields shows up in the order in the corresponding sections. Fields attached to the billing section will show up in the billing section of your order and fields attached to the shipping section of your checkout form will show up in the shipping section.

To work with the fields in other contexts (plugins for invoices, export) there’s some information on accessing the data for example in this thread:
field data.

Now: if you don’t see the data captured on your orders, at least that is what I understand, something’s going wrong as you should see the data in your test order. At least there. If you want to see all the data captured in a spreadsheet format: that’s not part of the plugin but there are plugins in the wild that allow you to visualize and export aggregate data from several or all orders.

Could you please report back if you can see your test data on the corresponding order?

Regards.
uh

Thanks uh

Yes the test data is appearing perfectly on the order and the confirmation email.

I guess I assumed incorrectly that the data in the fields generated from the plugin would be easily exportable.

The plugin is really useful as it is, but would rise to an even higher level if either it or its big brother pro-version was to be extended to provide an export facility.

I will investigate the “field data” thread and get something sorted. If you happen to have a recommendation for a plugin that you know would do what I’m after, then this would be most welcome.

Cheers
Stu

Hello Stu.

Will think about it. If you have access to your mysql database you could use a quick and dirty sql query like this one:

SELECT wp_posts.*
,(SELECT meta_value FROM wp_postmeta WHERE wp_postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.id and meta_key = '_billing_first_name') as val1
,(SELECT meta_value FROM wp_postmeta WHERE wp_postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.id and meta_key = '_billing_last_name') as val2
FROM wp_posts
WHERE post_type = 'shop_order'

The only thing you have to do is to amplify the select part using
,(SELECT meta_value FROM wp_postmeta WHERE wp_postmeta.post_id = wp_posts.id and meta_key = '_billing_last_name') as valn

replacing _billing_last_name with one of your field identifiers and valn with a unique identifier.

This will give you an exportable result.

Regards.
uh

Thanks uh

Hello Stu
I just saw this thread whilst searching for something else. I had also assumed plugin would do this. Have already purchased Big Brother to customise checkout fields per product, to manage event. Ugh, this is bad news. Did you find a compatible plugin/solution?
thanks
tori

Hello torlwid.

The Swiss Knifes do not use any specialized storage. Order data is stored together with the default data in the very same way WooCommerce already does. The same goes for the customer item data which is stored inside the order item meta data. Nearly all plugins out there that allow for personalization or that add extra information to the order or the order items assure that you can see the data but not necessarily provide export functionality.

Nearly all import/export plugins available for WooCommerce should do a fine job and allow you to reuse your data including the one captured with the Swiss Knifes. Probably I will provide some basic export functionality this year for the Rich Guys Swiss Knife but that this functionality is not available now, shouldn’t be a show-stopper. Dedicated export solutions are available and working. The Swiss Knifes never promised to do it all, they promise to do a lot. ??

Regards.
uh

Hi Uli
Understood. I saw an export plugin before and can go back and look that up.
Separately, are there links to some basic tutorials or something? I have been left high and dry by developer, and don’t have the time or the skill (if I had some skill, perhaps it would take less time) to compile the forms with the products. Have tried with the back-end but I am obviously a naive user. Have been trying to find a woocommerce freelancer to help.
Your support is very responsive, thanks
Tori

Hi Toriwid
The Export plugin we went with was WooCommerce – Store Exporter Deluxe
by Visser Labs. It is meeting our export requirements fine, including for the additional fields we set up using the Swiss Knives.
Cheers
Stu