Aligning Content Challenges
A guide on various impulse sync features that align fields
Aligning content can be challenging and going from a source to a destination when migrating content can especially be difficult when moving you may run into a variety of issues in this section we are going to go over three different Mapping options and Field Manipulators in order to help you in syncing your content. In this Page we will be using the example sync of moving content from Contentful source to Contentful destination, in this sync we will be tackling 3 issues. misaligned fields, needing content to stay the same in destination, and updating previous exisitng content in this destination. To do this we will be using our three mapping options with ImpulseSync
Field Mapper This Field mapper will allow you to map fields from source to destination. Some fields will not match one to one but with the field mapper we are able to match the content fields from source to destination correctly.
Locked Fields This Locked Fields will lock the destination field with any sync it will not update the content in this destination.
Content Aligner This content aligner allows you to move content from a source to many destinations treating this content as the same in each destination, it will match and align your content from the source to the destination.
These Three mapping options will help us move our content as we need.
Aligning Content with Field Mapper
With Syncing content often it doesn't align one to one from source to destination that is where the Content Mapper comes in. The Content mapper allows you to match content from one source to a entirely different field in the destination. In our example sync from Dotcms to Strapi we change a WYSIWYG field to a Rich Text field using our Content mapper, it turns our data from the source into motation in order for impulse sync to transform and align it properly.
The way to use the Content Mapper: Is documented more in depth here. To use the content mapper select the edit button next to a job and fill in each field with the respect source and destination field and content ID the following images are examples of proper Content Mapping with our Contentful use case
In this example we have 3 fields we are mapping and we are mapping the Source Fields to the Destination Fields. In order to understand what destination Field type we are using refer to our Connector Matrix to find out what best field type to select for your sync.
This allows ImpulseSync to go across systems from any supported CMS source to and destination.
Using Locked Fields
Changing content in the source and not the destination can be difficult when migrating content and can often come out in different ways than expected, This is where the Impulse Sync Locked Field option comes in, You have the ability to lock the field in the destination on sync so no content of that specified field will update when Impulse Sync migrates content.
Locked Field allows the ability to lock a field in the destination on sync, meaning when you sync this field again with a different value from the source to the destination Impulse Sync will not update that value in the destination.
To use the Locked Field: To begin set up Click the Edit button on the jobs page under the Mapper text, After you will be able to fill in the following fields Destination Locked Fields.
This Locked Field is filled with the ID of the destination field Locked field can only be applied on destination and will only lock the field of the ID provided.
Locked Field will make ImpulseSync Lock the field of the destination on sync and will not update the field if the value in the Source is different than the destination. In addition you may see additional ways to configure this Field here
Using the Content Aligner:
When having a piece of content used in multiple destinations, it can be quite tiresome to sync each one and migrate each one over and over, this is where our Content Aligner come in, Using this feature will allow you to flag a piece of content as the exact same in many destinations even on the very first sync over.
Using the Content aligner you are able to mark a piece of content/field and Impulse Sync will see and use this content as the same from one source to many destinations. This will allow you to avoid duplicates in Syncing, as well as flagging this content as the same will allow for quicker edits and fewer differences between source and many destinations. To use the Content Aligner: To begin set up Click the Edit button on the jobs page under the Mapper text, After you will be able to fill in the following fields of Source Aligner Field and Destination Aligner fields in the image below is a example on how to set up the Content Aligner.
In this image we are using the ID values from the Source and Destination of two fields, this means Impulse will try to align the sourceTitle and sourceNumber to the destination fields, and IF they match then ImpulseSync will flag this as the same content and update any fields that are outdated from the source to the destination. Make sure to also list multiple fields separated with commas as shown in the picture above, in addtion do not leave any white spaces as ImpulseSync will not be able to pick up on that.
This allows you to sync from source to destination on a first time sync and update your outdated content. In addition you may see additional ways to configure this Field here
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