Runs, dry runs and safety

A run reads one file through a profile. Runs are queued (admin buttons, schedules, the CLI) and executed by OpenImport's own cron group or by bin/magento openimport:run; never inside a web request.

What happens in a run

  1. Read the file (see File formats).
  2. Row filters skip rows (counted as filtered).
  3. Mapping and transforms build Magento's import rows; a row that cannot be mapped becomes an error with its row number in your file.
  4. Behaviour: Only add new skips records that exist, Only update existing skips records that do not (counted as skipped).
  5. Delta (when switched on): a record whose prepared rows are exactly what the last successful run of this profile sent is skipped (counted as unchanged). Changing the profile's source, format, filters, behaviour, mapping or value maps forgets the stored state, and a run with full ignores it. Each line of the file is compared on its own, so a file with one line per store view (or several addresses or tier prices per record) only sends the lines that changed.
  6. Magento validates and imports the rows with its own import engine. Its errors are reported against the rows of your file, not against Magento's internal row numbers.

Prepared rows are written to the run folder (var/openimport/runs/<run id>/), so memory use does not grow with the file.

Dry runs

A dry run does everything except the import: Magento validates every row, and OpenImport compares the prepared rows with what the shop has now. The run page shows the totals (new, changed, unchanged, deleted) and a sample of up to 200 records per kind with before → after for every changed field. Comparison follows Magento's rules: empty cells change nothing, numbers compare as numbers (12.50 = 12.5), Yes/No equal 1/0. Products and customers are compared field by field; categories, images and product relations are not compared.

Errors

  • Stop on error (default): if any row has an error, nothing is imported.
  • Skip rows with errors: valid rows are imported as long as the number of errors stays within allowed errors.

Every error names the row in your file, the record's identifier, the field and what is wrong. The first 10,000 errors of a run are stored (setting Errors kept per run); the count includes all of them.

Safety threshold

Runs with the Delete or Replace behaviour that would affect more than the safety threshold (default 10 % of the records of that kind in the shop) stop with the status Needs confirmation and do nothing. Confirming the run (typing DELETE or REPLACE in the admin, or --confirm on the CLI) runs it.

Statuses

Status Meaning
Queued Waiting for the next cron minute (or the CLI).
Running Being processed.
Success Everything went through.
Partial Valid rows were imported, some rows had errors.
Failed Nothing was imported; the message says why.
Needs confirmation Above the safety threshold; nothing was done.
Cancelled Stopped by an admin before it started.

Only one run of a profile runs at a time, and only one live import per kind of record (products, customers …), so two imports never fight over the same indexers.