DEV Community: Vlad Ilie

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #5 Other adaptations and conclusions

Vlad Ilie — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 08:32:43 +0000

In the fourth part of this 5-article series, I concluded the implementation of functions for custom import commands for users, progress, and reviews.

In the last part, I will talk about the customizations I made to the Masterclass online site and specifically go through the adaptations I made to the theme, Tutor LMS templates, and WooCommerce. Below is the list of articles in the series:

Table of contents:

Part 1: Planning and data preparation

Part 2: Users import

Part 3: Progress import

Part 4: Reviews import

Part 5: Other adaptations and conclusions

The `Tutor LMS` dashboard

The Tutor LMS user dashboard on the Masterclass online site looked something like this:"

It would have been a bit complicated to merge the two control panels, the one from WooCommerce and the one shown in the picture from Tutor LMS, into a single one, so I just linked them together. If the user needs information about orders, they can find it in the WooCommerce panel; if they need information about the courses they have enrolled in, they can find it in the Tutor LMS panel, both accessible through direct links.

To add the "Order Dashboard" link (marked with green), I overwrote the /dashboard.php template of Tutor LMS: I copied the contents of the /wp-content/plugins/tutor/templates directory to the /wp-content/themes/child-theme/tutor directory and added the following item to the navigation links list (inside the <ul class="tutor-dashboard-permalinks"> element):

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/tutor/dashboard.php

<li class="tutor-dashboard-menu-item tutor-dashboard-menu-my-profile ">
    <a class="tutor-dashboard-menu-item-link tutor-fs-6 tutor-color-black" href="<?php echo esc_url( wc_get_page_permalink( 'myaccount' ) ); ?>">
        <span class='tutor-icon-arrow-right-left tutor-dashboard-menu-item-icon'></span>
        <span class='tutor-dashboard-menu-item-text tutor-ml-12'>Woo panel</span>
    </a>
</li>

Now, to remove the links marked with red in the image above, because such functionalities are not needed, I added the following filter to the functions.php file in the theme:

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/tutor/functions.php

// Remove the page tabs from the panel sidebar.
add_filter(
    'tutor_dashboard/nav_items',
    function( $defaults ) {
        unset( $defaults['wishlist'] );
        unset( $defaults['my-quiz-attempts'] );
        unset( $defaults['question-answer'] );

        return $defaults;
});

The `WooCommerce` dashboard

To add the link to the Tutor LMS dashboard in the navigation menu of WooCommerce, for overriding, I copied the template /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/myaccount/navigation.php to the directory /wp-content/themes/child-theme/woocommerce/myaccount/navigation.php and added the following element as the first item in the <ul> list:

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/woocommerce/myaccount/navigation.php

<li class="woocommerce-MyAccount-navigation-link woocommerce-MyAccount-navigation-link--dashboard">
    <a href="<?php echo esc_url( tutor_utils()->tutor_dashboard_url() ); ?>"><strong>Courses panel</strong></a>
</li>

The `Tutor LMS` authentication form

During the migration and dealing with user accounts, I didn't want to make it intrusive and, especially, to violate the General Data Protection Regulation. So, I approached this differently by notifying users through a message in the login form that the site has moved to another platform. If they had an account before, they could request a password reset link to log in. To add this message, I used hooks in the functions.php file of the theme:

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/functions.php

// Add custom message in the Tutor LMS login form.
add_action(
    'tutor_login_form_middle',
    function () {
        $lost_pass_url = wp_lostpassword_url();
        ?>
        <p>We recently migrated the site to a new platform. If you have an account before, please <a href="<?php echo esc_url( $lost_pass_url ); ?>">reset your password</a>.</p>
        <?php
    }
);

Other filters for `WooCommerce`

Tutor LMS being integrated with the WooCommerce e-commerce engine, each course in Tutor LMS has a corresponding product linked in WooCommerce. Unfortunately, Tutor LMS does not automatically hide WooCommerce products specifically created for courses.
Consequently, these products could be added to the cart during a purchase, both as products and courses. To avoid such situations, I use the filter below, which hides products from areas like the shop page and related products.

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/functions.php

// Hide products from Woo shop page.
add_filter( 'woocommerce_product_is_visible', '__return_false' );

But that's not enough.
Products would still be accessible at a direct address, for example: https://mclass.test/product/product-name. Applying the filter below disables access to product pages:

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/functions.php

// Remove single page for Woo products.
add_filter(
    'woocommerce_register_post_type_product',
    function ( $args ) {
        $args['publicly_queryable'] = false;
        $args['public']             = false;

        return $args;
    },
    12
);

A final filter that I used is for removing the "quantity" field from the shopping cart page to prevent increasing the quantity. It wouldn't make sense for a user to purchase a quantity greater than 1 for a course.

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/functions.php

// Hide quantity input field from cart.
add_filter( 'woocommerce_is_sold_individually', '__return_true' );

Also, to remove the quantity field from the cart, I copied the template /wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/templates/cart/cart.php to /wp-content/themes/child-theme/woocommerce/cart/cart.php to override it, and then removed the following lines from it:

// /wp-content/themes/child-theme/woocommerce/cart/cart.php

<th class="product-quantity"><?php esc_html_e( 'Quantity', 'woocommerce' ); ?></th>

// AND

<td class="product-quantity" data-title="<?php esc_attr_e( 'Quantity', 'woocommerce' ); ?>">
<?php
if ( $_product->is_sold_individually() ) {
    $min_quantity = 1;
    $max_quantity = 1;
} else {
    $min_quantity = 0;
    $max_quantity = $_product->get_max_purchase_quantity();
}

$product_quantity = woocommerce_quantity_input(
    array(
        'input_name'   => "cart[{$cart_item_key}][qty]",
        'input_value'  => $cart_item['quantity'],
        'max_value'    => $max_quantity,
        'min_value'    => $min_quantity,
        'product_name' => $product_name,
    ),
    $_product,
    false
);

echo apply_filters( 'woocommerce_cart_item_quantity', $product_quantity, $cart_item_key, $cart_item ); // PHPCS: XSS ok.
?>
</td>

Migration to production

After all the changes were made, migrations executed, courses arranged, and the store prepared with all the integrations, I moved the site from the local environment to the production environment using the All in One WP Migration plugin. Throughout the development process of the new site, after each major step (creating courses and building their pages with Elementor, installing and configuring WooCommerce, running migrations, etc.), I made a backup with All in One WP Migration. If I had identified any data discrepancies or a malfunctioning part of the site while working on the next step, I would have reverted to the previous state of the site. In essence, I would have performed a roll-back, and this way, I could avoid losing too much progress.

When I had a backup very close to a version ready for production, I placed it on the production subdomain, and that's how I had a smooth development-launch process.

Conclusions

WordPress once again provides a solution to a problem I encountered. The related technologies developed around it are truly a breath of fresh air, and if you enjoy this environment, it's worth investing time and energy. Certainly, impressive results can be achieved using WordPress, even for enterprise projects—no need to say that, Automattic proves it every day.

WP-CLI is a very powerful and flexible tool that can be helpful in many situations like these migrations. I recommend it every time I have the chance; I've used it in dozens of projects, and each time, I've successfully accomplished everything I needed with it.

This article was first published on my blog.

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #4 Reviews import

Vlad Ilie — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 08:32:40 +0000

In the previous article, the third part of this 5-article series, I described the implementation of the WP-CLI command to import the progress of courses for users.

In part four, I will describe the functionality of the WP-CLI command to import reviews given by users to the courses.
Below, I also provide you with the list of articles in the series:

Table of contents:

Part 1: Planning and data preparation

Part 2: Users import

Part 3: Progress import

Part 4: Reviews import

Part 5: Other adaptations and conclusions

Declaring the review import method

I start again by declaring the method and the helper variables for reading from the file:

// class-wpcli.php

public function import_reviews(): void {
    global $wp_filesystem, $wpdb;

    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/file.php';
    WP_Filesystem();

    $files = array( 'course-1-reviews.json', 'course-2-reviews.json', 'course-3-reviews', 'course-4-reviews.json' );
    //...
}

I also declared a variable of type array with the list of files containing reviews for courses, which I will iterate through using foreach ($files as $file).

Reading from file

`JSON` file structure

I'm putting here again the structure of the review file in JSON format:

// course-*-reviews.json

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "<course-name>",
  "aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "4.6", "reviewCount": 5 },
  "review": [
    {
      "@type": "Review",
      "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "<reviewer-name>" },
      "description": "<review-description>",
      "name": "<review-title>",
      "date": "November 26, 2021",
      "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "bestRating": 5, "ratingValue": 5, "worstRating": 0 }
    },
    // ...
  ],
    "image": "<course-image-url>"
}

As in the previous articles, reading from files is done in a similar way, but this time I won't use the helper method parse_csv_content to compose the vector with lines from the CSV file.
Instead, I will use the json_decode function to interpret the JSON code:

// class-wpcli.php

$file_path    = plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . '/data/reviews/' . $file;
$file_content = $wp_filesystem->get_contents( $file_path );
$json         = json_decode( $file_content );

$course_name  = $json->name;
$review_count = count( $json->review );

$course = get_page_by_title( $course_name, OBJECT, 'courses' );

I also declared a few more variables that will be useful later on.
I made sure that the course names in the review files in the name field match the names of the courses created in Tutor LMS.

Processing reviews

I then started looping through the reviews in the review array in the JSON and proceeded like this:

// class-wpcli.php
foreach ( $json->review as $review ) {
    $user_id = $this->search_user_by_name( $review->author->name );
    $new_comment  = wp_insert_comment(
        array(
            'comment_post_ID'  => $course->ID,
            'comment_author'   => $review->author->name,
            'comment_date'     => gmdate( 'Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime( $review->date ) ),
            'comment_content'  => $review->description,
            'comment_agent'    => 'TutorLMSPlugin',
            'comment_type'     => 'tutor_course_rating',
            'comment_approved' => 'approved',
            'user_id'          => $user_id,
            'comment_meta'     => array( 'tutor_rating' => $review->reviewRating->ratingValue ), // phpcs:ignore WordPress.NamingConventions.ValidVariableName.UsedPropertyNotSnakeCase
        )
    );

    if ( is_wp_error( $new_comment ) ) {
        \WP_CLI::warning( sprintf( 'Review of "%s" for "%s" not imported.', $review->author->name, $course_name ) );
    }
}

I performed a search for the user's name to retrieve their ID from the database using the helper method search_user_by_name, described below. Then, I used the wp_insert_comment function to create the review, to which I passed the necessary values:

The ID of the course to which the review belongs
The author's name
The review date (slightly reformatted)
The review content
The custom values of the Tutor LMS plugin to categorize the review as one of the Tutor LMS course reviews
The user's ID
The review rating

The method for searching for a user by name and surname is here:

// class-wpcli.php

protected function search_user_by_name( string $name ): int {
    $normalized_name = str_replace( '  ', ' ', trim( $name ) );
    $names           = explode( ' ', $normalized_name ); // line 3️⃣
    $last_name       = array_pop( $names );
    $first_name      = implode( ' ', $names ); // line 5️⃣

    $wp_user_query = new WP_User_Query(
        array(
            'role'       => 'subscriber',
            'meta_query' => array(
                'relation' => 'AND',
                array(
                    'key'     => 'first_name',
                    'value'   => $first_name,
                    'compare' => '=',
                ),
                array(
                    'key'     => 'last_name',
                    'value'   => $last_name,
                    'compare' => '=',
                ),
            ),
        )
    );

    $authors = $wp_user_query->get_results();

    return $authors[0]->ID;
}

In the initial phase, I performed a small normalization of the name, specifically removing spaces from the ends and replacing double spaces in the name with a single space. I noticed many discrepancies of this kind in the JSON-exported file obtained from Thinkific course pages.

Then (in lines 3-5), I split the name by space to be able to obtain the first and last names, even when the full name consists of 3 names. In this case, I used ChatGPT, resulting in the combination of the explode, array_pop, and implode functions.

Furthermore, I used the WP_User_Query class for the complex query to find the user by their first and last names, and finally, I returned the ID.

Closing thoughts

With the execution of the last WP-CLI command, we now have the reviews added:

$ wp thinkific import reviews

The migration is complete, and in the next article, I will make a few adjustments to the theme, Tutor LMS, and WooCommerce templates."

This article was first published on my blog.

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #3 Progress import

Vlad Ilie — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 08:32:37 +0000

In part two of this 5-article series, I discussed how I implemented the WP-CLI custom command for importing users.

In part three, I will describe the functionality of the WP-CLI command for importing the progress of users regarding the courses they are enrolled in on the Thinkific platform. Below, I also provide you with the list of articles in the series:

Table of contents:

Part 1: Planning and data preparation

Part 2: Users import

Part 3: Progress import

Part 4: Reviews import

Part 5: Other adaptations and conclusions

Defining the progress import method

I have a separate CSV progress file for each existing course, from which I will read one by one using a recursive statement.

To begin, I define the progress import method, declare global variables, and include and call the WP_Filesystem function in WordPress.

// class-wpcli.php

public function import_progress() {
    global $wp_filesystem, $wpdb;

    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/file.php';
    WP_Filesystem();
    // ...
}

Next, I define an associative array with the list of progress files from which reading will be made and the course ID for which that progress corresponds:

// class-wpcli.php

$files         = array(
    'course-1-progress.csv' => 10, // Course name 1
    'course-2-progress.csv' => 11, // Course name 2
    'course-3-progress.csv' => 12, // Course name 3
    'course-4-progress.csv' => 13, // Course name 4
);

$file_basepath = plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'data/progress/';

And through the foreach ( $files as $file => $course_id ) instruction, I go through the list of files and start reading from them:

// class-wpcli.php

$file_content = $wp_filesystem->get_contents( $file_basepath . $file );
$csv_data     = $this->parse_csv_content( $file_content );
$i            = 0;
$lesson_names = array();
$time         = time();

I reused the parse_csv_content method to transform the lines from the CSV into a vector, a method I defined in part two during the user import. I also defined the variables $i, $lesson_names, and $time, which I will use later.

Data browsing and processing

To avoid getting too tangled up, I'll include the entire section on traversing and processing the data, and then I'll add comments afterward:

// class-wpcli.php

foreach ( $csv_data as $line ) {
    if ( ! $i ) { // line 2️⃣
        $i++;
        $chapter_names = array_slice( $line, 3 ); // line 4️⃣
        continue;
    } // line 6️⃣

    list($email, $completed_at, $percent_completed) = array_slice( $line, 0, 3 ); // line 8️⃣

    $user = get_user_by( 'email', $email );
    if ( ! $user ) {
        \WP_CLI::error( sprintf( 'The user with email address %s does not exist.', $email ) );
    }

    $chapter_progress = array_slice( $line, 3 ); // line 1️⃣5️⃣
    $count            = count( $chapter_progress ); // line 1️⃣6️⃣
    for ( $j = 0; $j < $count; $j++ ) {
        if ( '100' === $chapter_progress[ $j ] ) {
            $lesson_id = $wpdb->get_var(
                $wpdb->prepare(
                    "SELECT ID
                    FROM $wpdb->posts
                    WHERE post_parent = (
                        SELECT ID
                        FROM $wpdb->posts
                        WHERE post_title = %s AND post_parent = %d
                    )",
                    $chapter_names[ $j ],
                    $course_id
                )
            );

            if ( ! $lesson_id ) {
                \WP_CLI::error( sprintf( 'The lesson named „%s” of the course „” not found.', $chapter_names[ $j ], $course_id ) );
            }

            $updated = update_user_meta( $user->ID, '_tutor_completed_lesson_id_' . $lesson_id, $time );

            if ( ! $updated ) {
                \WP_CLI::warning( sprintf( 'Update status: „%s”. That means failure or the value already exists.', $updated ) );
            }
        }
    }

    $i++;
}

In lines 2-6, I skipped the first line of the CSV file again, which contains the column names. However, at the same time, I retained the lesson names (line 4) in the variable $lesson_names because I need them in the query below. If you recall from the first part of data preparation, the first line of the progress CSV file looked like this:

Email,Completed At,% Completed,<Chapter-1-name>,<Chapter-2-name>,...,<Chapter-n-name>

With the array_slice function, I skipped the first 3 fields (Email, Completed At, and % Completed), and the remaining values were returned in the variable $lesson_names. Here, the chapter names of the course were stored.

Similarly, on line 15, the lesson progress was stored.

On line 8, I used the same function, this time to store the first 3 values.

Then, a search is performed based on the user's email address. In principle, there should be no issues with this search, as users should have been created during the user import step. Nevertheless, for any eventuality, I included a check with an error message.

Finally, starting from line 16, the progress of the lessons is iterated through.

Processing progress chapter - lesson

I mentioned at some point that I made a compromise and processed only the chapters whose progress is 100.

To clarify: the content of the courses can be organized, both in Thinkific and Tutor LMS, into chapters with lessons, topics with lessons, or whatever you want to call them. So, there are only two levels of hierarchy. Progress refers only to chapters (or topics), not to the lessons within them, and the CSV file is generated accordingly by Thinkific.

For example, a chapter with 3 lessons and a progress of 67% implies that 2 of its lessons have been completed. In reality, I don't know which of the 3 lessons have been completed, but I assumed it's the first 2, considering the natural order of progressing through a course.

Now, in Tutor LMS, the approach is as follows: progress must be set per lesson and only in the state of either completed or not completed. The field in the database for the progress of a user's course is stored in the _usermeta table as follows:

| umeta_id | user_id | meta_key                      | meta_value |
| -------- | ------- | ----------------------------- | ---------- |
| 12345    | 678     | _tutor_completed_lesson_id_90 | 1705610847 |

The user with ID 678 completed the lesson with ID 90 on the date with Unix timestamp 1705610847 (which corresponds to Thursday, January 18, 2024, at 22:47:27 GMT+0200). Lesson with ID 90 itself has a parent ID. This parent represents the chapter of that lesson.

In the Masterclass project, a single course has a chapter with 3 lessons. The rest of the chapters have one lesson each. From the perspective of progress migration, having only 8 cases where the progress of that chapter was not 100 (if I remember correctly 🤔), my job was easy. Manual updating of that progress in the database took only 2 minutes.

Search and update lesson progress

The variable $lesson_id retained, in plain language, the "ID of the post whose post_parent field is the post with the ID whose post_title is the name of the chapter AND post_parent is the ID of the course from the current iteration". I know, it sounds quite strange, but that's how the query translates 😁.

In the end, the user's _tutor_completed_lesson_id_* field is updated, and they will see the progress they had on Thinkific in the WordPress dashboard.

Closing thoughts

The progress import command is about to be executed, and once again, the magic happens. 🧙🏼‍♂️

$ wp thinkific import progress

One more step, and the migration is complete.
In the next article, I will use the WordPress comments API for migrating reviews, so I invite you to check it out. 😎

This article was first published on my blog.

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #2 Users import

Vlad Ilie — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 08:32:21 +0000

In the first part of this 5-article series, I discussed the project for which I performed the migration, how I planned the migration, and how I exported data from Thinkific.

Here, in the second part, I will cover the functionality of the WP-CLI command that I implemented to import users into WordPress. Below, I also provide you with the list of articles in the series:

Table of contents:

Part 1: Planning and data preparation

Part 2: Users import

Part 3: Progress import

Part 4: Reviews import

Part 5: Other adaptations and conclusions

As I mentioned, here begins the most interesting part of the entire process of migrating data from Thinkific to WordPress. I intend to create a plugin that encompasses everything needed for custom WP-CLI commands, specifically the PHP class I have implemented.

I will go through the key points of the class one by one and explain the approaches along the way.

Declaring custom `WP-CLI` commands

To begin with, I defined a method in which I added 3 custom WP-CLI commands that I implemented further:

//class-wpcli.php
// ...

protected function define_commands(): void {
    if ( class_exists( 'WP_CLI' ) ) {
        \WP_CLI::add_command( 'thinkific import users', array( $this, 'import_users' ) );
        \WP_CLI::add_command( 'thinkific import progress', array( $this, 'import_progress' ) );
        \WP_CLI::add_command( 'thinkific import reviews', array( $this, 'import_reviews' ) );
    }
}
// ...

These 3 commands will be available by running them in a terminal shell using WP-CLI.

Reading from file

In all three callbacks derived from the method above, namely import_users, import_progress, and import_reviews, it was necessary to read from data files (2 CSV files and a JSON file). For this, I used the API from the WP_Filesystem class belonging to WordPress, which helped me keep the code quite clean and within standard limits.

// class-wpcli.php

public function import_users(): void {
    global $wp_filesystem;

    include_once ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/file.php';
    WP_Filesystem();

    $file_path    = plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'data/users.csv';
    $file_content = $wp_filesystem->get_contents( $file_path );
    $csv_data     = $this->parse_csv_content( $file_content );
    //...
}

As can be seen, we have implemented another helper method to interpret the CSV content into an easily traversable vector format:

// class-wpcli.php

protected function parse_csv_content( $csv_content ): array {
    $lines = explode( "\n", $csv_content );
    $data  = array();

    foreach ( $lines as $line ) {
        $data[] = str_getcsv( $line );
    }

    return $data;
}

I was then able to simply loop through the lines in the CSV file and proceed with the data processing:

// class-wpcli.php

foreach ( $csv_data as $line ) {
    if ( ! $i ) {
        $i++;
        continue;
    }

    list(, , , , , , $courses) = $line;
    $course_arr                = explode( ', ', $courses );
    if ( count( $course_arr ) && ! empty( $course_arr[0] ) ) {
        $user_id = $this->create_user( $line );
        $this->create_woo_order( $line, $user_id );
    }

    $i++;
}

Obviously, I skipped the header row of the table (lines 2-5).
Then, I processed only the users enrolled in at least one course (line 9). There were a few cases where users were merely registered on the platform but had not purchased any courses. Consequently, migrating this data was unnecessary as it was not relevant.

Subsequently, for the remaining users, I invoked the two methods: user creation and order creation in WooCommerce - as mentioned earlier, I needed to integrate with the normal course purchase process through Tutor LMS - WooCommerce.

Create user

In the user creation method, I didn't do anything special.
I passed the information from the CSV line to the method, and if the user searched by email address did not already exist, I created them. In both cases, the user ID is returned, and only in the case of a user creation error, null is returned.

// class-wpcli.php

protected function create_user( $user_data ) {
    list($first_name, $last_name, , $created_at, $email) = $user_data;
    $user = get_user_by( 'email', $email );

    // User already exists, return current user ID.
    if ( $user ) {
        $user_id = $user->get( 'ID' );

        return $user->get( 'id' );
    }

    $user_id = wp_insert_user(
        array(
            'user_login'      => $email,
            'user_email'      => $email,
            'first_name'      => $first_name,
            'last_name'       => $last_name,
            'use_ssl'         => true,
            'user_registered' => str_replace( ' UTC', '', $created_at ),
        )
    );
    if ( is_wp_error( $user_id ) ) {
        \WP_CLI::error( sprintf( 'Error creating user %1$s %2$s <%3$s>: %4$s', $first_name, $last_name, $email, $user_id->get_error_message() ) );

        return null;
    } else {
        // User created.
        return $user_id;
    }
}

Of course, when creating the user, I used the data from the file and interpreted the registration date because the provided format is not the same as the one accepted by the structure in the WordPress user table - I removed the UTC part from the date.

Create `WooCommerce` order

I hope I've been clear when mentioning "creating a WooCommerce order". To elaborate, I'm referring to generating an order for products in an online store built with WooCommerce, which is intended for payment and so forth. Within the WooCommerce order creation method, I manually matched the IDs of the course products, as seen in lines 2-8.

IDs 1, 2, 3, and 4 are assigned to products in the database, linked to the respective courses in the Tutor LMS plugin. Of course, the actual IDs are different.

// class-wpcli.php

protected function create_woo_order( array $data, int $user_id ): void {
    $raw_course_list = array(
        // course_title => product_id.
        'Course title 1' => 1,
        'Course title 2' => 2,
        'Course title 3' => 3,
        'Course title 4' => 4,
    );

    list($first_name, $last_name, , $created_at, $email, , $courses) = $data;

    $order = wc_create_order(
        array(
            'customer_id' => $user_id,
            'status'      => 'wc-completed',
        )
    );

    $course_list = explode( ', ', $courses );
    // Add products to order.
    foreach ( $course_list as $course_name ) {
        $course_id = $raw_course_list[ $course_name ];
        $order->add_product( wc_get_product( $course_id ), 1 ); // 1 is for quantity.
    }

    $order->calculate_totals();

    $address = array(
        'first_name' => $first_name,
        'last_name'  => $last_name,
        'email'      => $email,
        'country'    => 'RO',
    );
    $order->set_address( $address, 'billing' );
    $order->set_payment_method( 'cod' );
    $order->set_date_created( $created_at );
    $order->set_date_completed( $created_at );
    $order->set_date_paid( $created_at );

    $order->save();
}

Instead of using the variable $raw_course_list, I could have performed a database search for courses, making the assignment of IDs dynamic. However, this would have introduced an additional database query and complicated things. If there were many more courses, I probably would have done it this way to save time.

Moving forward, I began preparing the "order", adding courses to the cart, calculating totals, and setting the customer's address, payment method, and date. Finally, I marked the "order" as paid. From that moment, the user becomes a learner on the new e-learning platform.

Closing thoughts

That's about it for the user import; now, all that's left is to run the command, and the magic happens. 🪄

$ wp thinkific import users

The next article will follow a similar pattern, but there are some interesting points to note there as well.

This article was first published on my blog.

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #1 Planning and data preparation

Vlad Ilie — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 08:31:51 +0000

In this series of 5 articles, I propose to write about how I migrated from the e-learning platform Thinkific to WordPress, how I exported the data from Thinkific, what technologies I used, how WordPress Command Line Interface (WP-CLI) helped me, and how I made other minor changes to templates or using WordPress API hooks.
Below, I leave you the list of articles in the series:

Table of contents:

Part 1: Planning and data preparation

Part 2: Users import

Part 3: Progress import

Part 4: Reviews import

Part 5: Other adaptations and conclusions

Introduction

2023 ended with a small WordPress challenge for me, to which I happily answered with "Yes!". It involved the content migration on WordPress of the masterclassonline.ro site belonging to the Cultural Association Cărțile pe față.

The e-learning site has been hosted so far on the Thinkific platform, which is dedicated to online courses. The main reason for this migration was price. And for a few courses, such a platform is too much.

And WordPress fits here like a glove. It's flexible, there are some good e-learning plugins on the market, there's even more flexibility in developing new functionality, and the experience I have is even more enjoyable. It can also bring some performance improvements. Migrating data from one side to another is just a matter of time.

I chose WP-CLI, the command line interface for WordPress because the process is singular. I need real-time monitoring during the migration, I have full control over the data, and the limitations are only those I impose on the local PHP configurations. I run the migration locally and only then move the site to the production instance.

Migration planning

Assessment of requirements and resources

In my case, the data I need from Thinkific is as follows:

the courses
users and their enrollment in courses
user progress for the courses they follow
course reviews received from students

The conditions for enrolling users in WordPress courses that, for example, require the creation of WooCommerce orders must also met. In addition to these, on the future platform, I need the following functionalities:

user registration and authentication
purchasing courses
card payment
possibility of invoicing per legal entity
users can track the progress of purchased courses

Create a detailed plan for the migration

For the new home of the Masterclass Online site, I chose the Tutor LMS plugin configured with WooCommerce for order processing, including payment, invoicing, and other integrations. However, I won't go into the details here.

Next, I studied the e-learning plugin to determine the technical requirements needed for migrating the data:

Identified filters and actions in Tutor LMS that I can use to bypass potential checks.
Examined the relationships between entities in the database.
Determined the necessary information to be filled in the WordPress instance for a user to access their courses.
Identified the fields to which other data Thinkific must be matched.
Established the optimal method for migration (I've already decided: WP-CLI rocks!)

Furthermore, I outlined the list of actions that I need to complete:

Prepared data exported from Thinkific by normalizing it and removing irrelevant information.
Ensured that no email notifications were enabled (e.g., for WordPress account creation or other emails related to WooCommerce orders).
❗️ Based on my research on the functionality of the Tutor LMS plugin, there is a need for a PHP check to be denied. I delved (probably not enough) into the plugin, and from all the tests I conducted, without this disclaimer, the user wouldn't see their courses in the dashboard. Unfortunately, a filter for making this process easier does not exist in the plugin.
Executed the import for users, progress, and reviews.
Reactivated email notifications if they were disabled previously."

Exporting and preparing data from `Thinkific`

I had some challenges with data, but it turned out to be relatively easy to export them.

Users

Fortunately, there is a handy method to export the list of users:
Thinkific Dashboard > Student Support > Users > Click on the "Export" button.

Once the processing is complete, an email notification will be sent with a link to download the file in CSV format.

The header of the exported CSV file looks like this:

First Name,Last Name,Amount spent,Date created,Email,Enrollments,Enrollments - list,External source,Last sign in,Referred by,Roles,Sign in count

Of all the data, I only need the following:

First Name
Last Name
Date created
Email
Enrollments - list

So, I can either normalize the file and remove everything I don't need, or go through it and select only the necessary data (initially, I opted for the second option).

Courses

Since there are only 4 courses, I didn't find it necessary to export them. There doesn't seem to be an option for this in the Thinkific dashboard (or I couldn't locate it).

I manually created the courses in the e-learning plugin and as products in WooCommerce. The process was quite fast; the main time consumption was in visually arranging and styling them with Elementor.

The way Thinkific exports the user list is a bit peculiar because, in the Enrollments - list field of the CSV file, each user has a separate comma-separated list of course titles they are enrolled in.
As a result, I had to go through each user's list during the import process and manually match them to set up the user-course relationships.

📛 The only drawback in this regard is that the developed plugin is not entirely "plug-and-play"; it will require adaptation for that manual matching if run on a different dataset.

Progress

This concerns the progress of each user in each course they are taking. Once again, the list of each user's progress can be easily exported from the Thinkific dashboard.

📛 Another drawback of the Thinkific platform is that progress can only be exported individually, per course, and not in bulk. So, if you have many courses on the platform and want such a migration, you might have a more serious task on your hands.

The header of the exported progress CSV file looks like this:

Email,Completed At,% Completed,<Chapter-1>,<Chapter-2>,...,<Chapter-n>

The values for the columns with <Chapter-names> range from 0 to 100.

You will see further in part three of the article series that I made a compromise and only treated progress with the value of 100. For the remaining values other than 100, being fewer in number, I took the responsibility to update them manually directly in the database.

Reviews

Thinkific doesn't have a user-friendly method to export course reviews. Through a quick Google search, I came across this article that guided me on how to obtain reviews for each course. Again, if you have many courses on the platform and want to migrate them to WordPress, it will require more manual work.

Returning to the point, course reviews are available in the page source of each course. So, I fetched them from there (after ensuring they were all validated from the Thinkific dashboard!) in JSON format this time and worked with them from there (for the sake of dynamics 😁 - kidding, it seemed easier for me to process them this way).

The structure of each JSON object for reviews looks like this:

// reviews-course-1.json

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "Product",
  "name": "<course-name>",
  "aggregateRating": { "@type": "AggregateRating", "ratingValue": "4.6", "reviewCount": 5 },
  "review": [
    {
      "@type": "Review",
      "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "<reviewer-name>" },
      "description": "<review-description>",
      "name": "<review-title>",
      "date": "November 26, 2021",
      "reviewRating": { "@type": "Rating", "bestRating": 5, "ratingValue": 5, "worstRating": 0 }
    },
    // ...
  ],
    "image": "<course-image-url>"
}

Closing thoughts

Thank you for your patience so far. 🍻 By now, I have the migration plan and all the necessary data from Thinkific in their respective files.

In the next article, I will tackle the part I enjoy the most, implementing one of the WP-CLI commands. ✌️

This article was first published on my blog.

DEV Community: Vlad Ilie

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #5 Other adaptations and conclusions

The Tutor LMS dashboard

The WooCommerce dashboard

The Tutor LMS authentication form

Other filters for WooCommerce

Migration to production

Conclusions

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #4 Reviews import

Declaring the review import method

Reading from file

JSON file structure

Processing reviews

Closing thoughts

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #3 Progress import

Defining the progress import method

Data browsing and processing

Processing progress chapter - lesson

Search and update lesson progress

Closing thoughts

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #2 Users import

Declaring custom WP-CLI commands

Reading from file

Create user

Create WooCommerce order

Closing thoughts

Migrate from Thinkific to WordPress. #1 Planning and data preparation

Introduction

Migration planning

Assessment of requirements and resources

Create a detailed plan for the migration

Exporting and preparing data from Thinkific

Users

Courses

Progress

Reviews

Closing thoughts

The `Tutor LMS` dashboard

The `WooCommerce` dashboard

The `Tutor LMS` authentication form

Other filters for `WooCommerce`

`JSON` file structure

Declaring custom `WP-CLI` commands

Create `WooCommerce` order

Exporting and preparing data from `Thinkific`