Let’s take the user question first. ‘Bulk import’ from where? And/or from what?

From a csv or xls file.

My customer planned to give access to all his students, approx. 700 people…

Ok – well that was not what I was expecting! But now I know that then the important question is the how? How will these be imported? I need to determine whether whatever imports these users creates a proper WP user record using the WP API as that is the only way that the forum is going to also have the user data it needs created.

I’m not sure I understand you well.

Do you mean that I have to create users in the WP admin area?
Then I could use this plugin perhaps:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/import-users-from-csv/

Would that do the trick you think?

That plugin does look it comes from a reputable source although I can’t try it of course.

So two options really. Import your users into WP and as long as the import mechanism abides by WP API and rules then it will create the user data specfic to the forum. Or – and this would actually be easier – import your users BEFORE you install SP and let SP create the data during the installation process.

OK thx!

I think it’ll be option one I guess. The 700 people will not be added at once. 20 to 30 per week.
Now I know what to do and know that I’m not missing a handy tool and made it myself more difficult than necessary…

Cheers and thx for the quick responses!!

Simply check after the first batch are imported (or do a test run) to make sure that the forums ‘sfmembers’ table is getting populated correctly.

Did a test with an import of 2 users and they showed up as members.

Thx and cheers!

That’s excellent.