Details for the Professional level SaaS service. Many features are present in the SLP® for WordPress : Power plugin.
Note: IMPORT requires Power add-on for the stand alone WPSLP plugin or if you are using MYSLP SaaS, the Professional level or higher plan.
When creating a CSV import file make sure the zip / postal code column is properly formatted as text so you do not lose leading zeros.
The column header for postal/zip codes is zip or sl_zip.
In the United States many northeastern postal codes start with zero. Many sheets, Microsoft Excel in particular, LOVE to leave off the leading zero if you enter a zip code as 03907 and save as CSV.
In Excel, and many other apps, you can force a field where you are typing in numbers to be text by starting your entry with an apostrophe (‘). Type ‘03907 when entering the data NOT 03907.
A good test to see if this is happening to you, open your CSV file in Google Sheets and see what it looks like. Does it look like the sheet above missing a zero and right aligned?
Another indicator that this column is set to a numeric type and not an text type is the data is on the RIGHT SIDE of the cell. Text is left-justified (like sl_state) and numbers are right-justified.
This page /information does not apply to SLP SaaS. This information is provided for the SLP do it yourself plug-in only
WPSLP Power add-on uses the built-in file up-loader provided by WordPress Core instead of a custom file import script. Look in the Media Library in WordPress. Make sure your install has not disabled the default WordPress media up-loader.
NOTE: As of July 2018, if you are using the WPSLP “do it yourself” plugin with Power add-on and you have not included the latitude and longitude and require geocoding , make sure you have a Google API account and have checked off the Maps and Geocoding APIs in your library.
Do you see the CSV file you just imported? If not then your site has disabled the WordPress media uploader.
If your file IS in the media library but never gets past the offset “0” setting check to make sure your server has not disabled the WordPress Cron .
Check to see if your server is preventing the wp-cron.php from being triggered.
Check your import file in the media library by clicking on it. It should show what the file size is and the current offset. The offset is where the background process is shown while importing the file. If it is shown as “zero” then your WordPress Uploads directory for the media library has been set to non-standard restricted access meaning the background location import process is not allowed to open the file after it was uploaded.
All Store Locator Plus CSV files must start with a file import header that indicates what data is in each column.
The first row of the Store Locator Plus import file should look like this, you do not need the (sl in front of the header name for the basic import function to work):
sl_store,sl_address,sl_address2,sl_city,sl_state,sl_zip,sl_country,sl_latitude,sl_longitude,category,sl_tags,sl_description,sl_email,sl_url,sl_hours,sl_phone,sl_fax,sl_image,sl_private,sl_neat_title
Please see the Example CSV files post for a sample base file with a header.
To speed up imports you should NOT include columns that have no data.
For imports that did NOT start out as a CSV export from the SAME SITE you should NOT have an sl_id column.
For geocoding, assigning a latitude and longitude, to work during import you need to have at least one of the address fields in your file and preferably these main fields:
All field names can drop the leading “sl_” for readability. For example sl_address can become address. The field names usually match the field label, for example if you have the Experience add on or the Professional level or higher SaaS plan , you can have “Featured” and “Rank” as import columns.
WordPress blog posts likes to use curly quotes instead of straight quotes whenever you write an article. Our documentation site is built on WordPress which means many of our articles are replaced any quotes we type in an article with curly quotes.
The problem is that the WordPress shortcode processor does NOT like curly quotes. If you use curly quotes in a shortcode attribute such as [slp_directory by=”city”] and those quotes are “curly”, WordPress treats the quotes as a plain-old alphabetic character just like the C-I-T or Y in “city”. In other words WordPress things you mean “by quote-city-quote” not “by city”.
If you copy-and-paste most examples from this documentation site WordPress will copy the “pretty curly quotes” into your shortcode. If you paste that into your WordPress page it breaks.
An example of how this can impact Store Locator Plus can be seen from my example where I pasted the slp_directory shortcode directly from the docs site into my test site. I get an invalid data query because WordPress added curly-quotes to my data field name. The SLP database does not have a field name quotesl_storequote but does have a field named sl_store.
Make sure you re-type each quote manually. Typing the ” in your blog instead of copy-and-paste will ensure you are getting “straight quotes” in your shortcode attributes not curly quotes.
This is how the example looks now that the curly quotes have been replaced with straight quotes.
Store Locator Plus . Store Locator Plus SaaS: Enterprise level subscribers have a module that adds URL control functionality.
Territory Bounds module was moved from the General | Data tab to the General | Server | Web App Settings section. Cluster Map Markers is useful for a large dataset in close proximity to each other on the map.
A URL Control module was been added to the application for Enterprise or premier subscribers. Enabling this module will turn on the interface to allow additional data to be presented in a web page URL to impact how the locator behaves.
The first URL Control option is to pass a location ID in via a URL. Adding ?location=<id> to the end of a web page address that hosts the locator will cause the page to load with the specified location being highlighted as if the map marker was clicked. The default behavior is to show the info bubble for that location.
With the Power add-on you will find additional Bulk Actions under the Locations/Manage panel. There is a drop down menu under the Bulk actions tab that can be utilized to remove many, some or all tags associated with the location data. Check off which locations you want to remove the tags from, or you may check off all and select the filter to “Apply to all”
The Power add on for WordPress Store Locator Plus and the Power level for MySLP product line is within the Professional plan share similar features and functionality. Whereas they are similar, they are not interchangeable. There is a feature for MySLP subscribers that will allow some basic location loading from your SLP or other WP locator base plug-in. See News feed here for more info. MySLP SaaS version does not have SEO Pages or Directory Builder capability.
Note: Where the WP symbol appears below, those features are built into the WordPress SLP Power add-on only.
Assign categories to your locations that allow users to pick a category and show only those locations. Great for showing service versus retail centers or locations that carry specific products.
We need to filter our locations by brand. Does your plugin or an extension to your plugin have this feature?
Power add-on for WPSLP (DIY) or the Professional level plan (or higher) for MySLP is the right choice for doing that. Either allows for simple categories or parent/child relationships between categories. Locations can be assigned to one or more categories. Your users can then search for locations based on those categories.
For more complex hierarchical functionality , button bars , horizontal check-boxes for categories and more customized approaches you might want to check out our WPSLP Premier subscription or the MySLP Enterprise level subscription
Add a category for each brand you offer and your users will be able to filter locations showing only those that offer specific brands.
