[consulting] Approaches for retrieving external site's data

[Victor Kane]

The migrate module http://drupal.org/project/migrate was designed for this
kind of problem and is a joy to work with. Depends on a few other modules,
but one of the end results is that if you can get it onto a MySql database,
you can work to get views going with it! Etc. etc.

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar

2010/11/17 Alfonso Montero López <amontero at tinet.org>

> Hi listers.
>
> I have recently got in charge of a non-Drupal website and I need some
> advice in approaching an issue.
> The site is about listing learning centers along their training
> courses and allowing users to request more info by filling a form. No
> big deal here. You fill the form, data gets dumped into a table and
> the webmaster (me) receives a mail.
> All the subsequent workflow is done more or less manually on the table
> that gets the information requests. However, it's a custom coded PHP
> site and expanding or trying to automate the workflow any further
> seems not worth the investment as in its current state, it's kind of a
> mess. I think it's a good Drupal candidate.
> The problem is that the website cannot be replaced quickly enough
> because of its design and look that I'm not able to translate to
> Drupal. By now, no budget will be allocated to theming and
> consequently I can't port it to Drupal. Since Drupal still has to
> prove its worth in the eyes of decision makers. A site rebuild with
> Drupal from scratch is not [now] an option, since management thinks
> "hey! we've invested >6 mo and blahblahblah". I would like to shift
> this by creating an extranet to show what can be done and get some
> serious attention upstairs :)
>
> What I'm figuring out how to accomplish is to create a
> non-public-facing extranet for the learning centers built with Drupal,
> so I can use nodes to get info requests, route them according my
> workflow and do all the fancy stuff that Drupal can do with rules,
> views, etc. This extranet would be used initially by us and later by
> our customers (the learning centers) and not by site visitors, they
> should only fill the form in the website exactly as they're doing now.
> The missing gap is in how to move data from the custom app table to
> Drupal. Thus, I'll be able to do automatic mails, route leads from one
> user/departments to another, do reports with views, etc.
>
> So, here I am thinking in how to approach this one the right way. I've
> thought in installing a Drupal alongside the current website, so I can
> access the site's MySQL DB from Drupal and someway and import the
> records periodically into nodes, but for hosting limitations, it's not
> possible now.
>
> The solutions I found are these:
> *Connecting remotely to MySQL via port 3306 and load new leads. Has
> firewall issues and may not be supported by all hostings all the time.
> Also, seems to require quite some programming effort and still have to
> test Data module capabilities. As long as I can see, data will not be
> nodes, so I will lose all future workflow, rules, etc. capabilities,
> right?
> *Create a [password-protected] RSS feed script for the source site and
> fetch the leads from it to the Drupal extranet via FeedAPI and alikes.
> By now, it's the most elegant solution I've found. I assume that
> FeedAPI won't have problems if I periodically empty the source site
> leads table and it will gracefully catch up.
> *(All and every single alternatives are welcome here)
>
> Obviously, when the extranet is finished and working, I plan to move
> all to a fully Drupal site and make it hit the front page.
> BTW, planning to do it in D6.x.
>
> So, previous experiences and caveats will be very welcomed. I'm sure
> awesome ideas from the listers here will come up. I learnt a lot by
> lurking here and in devel during 3 years.
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Alfonso.
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