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Requirements and install

Import/export installs like every other extension sold here. Follow the shared procedure rather than an Import/export-specific one:

What is specific to Import/export

There is no Status to set at step 2. Import/export's screen has no Status switch and nothing reads one, so Extensions → Modules goes on listing it as Disabled while every screen, schedule and import works. Click + to install it, then the pencil to open it.

The permission entry at step 3 of the shared procedure is:

extension/preflight/module/preflight

Your own group is given it when you enable Import/export, so all you have to do is log out and back in. Tick it under both Access Permission and Modify Permission for any other user group that should be allowed to run imports.

Two screens beside it have entries of their own:

extension/preflight/customer/personal_data
extension/preflight/customer/purge
  • Personal Data, under Customers, looks up, exports and erases what Import/export holds about one person. Opening it needs Access on its entry; doing anything on it needs Modify on OpenCart's own customer/customer, the permission that already lets somebody edit a customer.
  • Remove everything held about a person, linked from the panel of that name on Import/export's own screen, needs Access and Modify on its own entry. For a group without them the panel says so instead of showing the link.

Installing grants those two to your own user group, the one you install with. Any other group has to be ticked by hand, once.

Import/export stores its own data. Installing it creates its tables; running imports fills them with your job history and the before-images that make rollback possible. Uninstalling deliberately leaves that history in place. See limits and guarantees for what that means and how to get rid of it if you want it gone.

Updating keeps what you configured, except the two secrets. An update means taking the old version off, which is OpenCart deleting an extension's settings. Import/export keeps its own copy and puts them back on the way in, so the directory you nominated, your retention window and your export directory are what they were, along with every job, plan and journal.

Your feed secret and your provider API key are deliberately not in that copy, and an update asks for them again. The copy lives in a table that is never deleted, so anything in it would still be in your database after you removed Import/export altogether, and a key of yours is not something to leave lying there. Until you re-enter them, the feed and text generation are off. That is the safe way round, but it means a scheduled feed URL stops working until you do. Follow updating to a newer version in the order it gives.

Scheduling needs your store's cron to be running, and nothing else. Installing Import/export registers two jobs on OpenCart's own scheduler, listed under Extensions → Cron Jobs: a daily purge, and an hourly pass that runs the profiles you have scheduled. If your host is not calling OpenCart's cron.php, neither happens, and neither is required to import by hand. See limits on unattended runs.

On OpenCart 4.1.0.4, put one line in your server's crontab instead. That release has a fault in OpenCart itself that stops every scheduled task on the store, ours and everybody else's, and no extension can repair it. Import/export does not need it repaired: the same two passes run from a crontab line of your own.

10 * * * * cd /path/to/store && php extension/preflight/preflight.php cron

It does exactly what the store's scheduler would have done: it runs the profiles that are due, purges what is past its retention window, emails you about a run that needs you, and records everything in Automatic runs the same way. On such a store, the banner on Import/export's own screen says this too. Everything you do by hand is unaffected, on that release as on any other.

Importing from a path on your server is off until you nominate a directory. There is no default, on purpose. If you only ever upload files or import from a URL, there is nothing to configure. The same is true of the feed URL and of text generation: both stay off until you fill in a setting. See the security posture for what each of those settings bounds.

Nothing you have to set

Import/export works out of the box: with every setting left as it is, you can upload a file or give a URL, plan an import, apply it and roll it back. Everything on the Settings for this store card at the bottom of Import/export's own screen turns something extra on, or trades one thing for another. Set only what you need:

Setting Set it when
Go easy on the server Imports may take longer if that keeps the storefront quick. Off is the faster import.
Import directory on the server Feeds are delivered to a directory on this server and you want to import them by path. Empty refuses server paths outright.
Write exports to Finished exports should land in a directory of your own, such as one your warehouse system reads. Empty keeps them in Import/export's own storage, where the Download button reads them from.
Keep rollback data for 30 days is not the window you want. See the retention window.
Feed secret An outside system should be able to fetch the most recent finished export over a URL. Empty means no feed at all, and orders, customers and coupons are never served over it whatever you set.
Text generation provider and Provider API key Import/export should write descriptions and meta fields for you, on your own Anthropic or OpenAI account. Empty means nothing is ever generated.
Source connect timeout and Source read timeout A supplier builds its feed on demand and takes longer than ten minutes to hand it over, which the read timeout otherwise gives up at.
Provider connect timeout and Provider read timeout Your provider regularly takes longer than two minutes over one of your instructions.
Tokens priced per field The cost estimate runs consistently high or low for your instructions. It changes the estimate only, never what is written.
Runs shown per profile 20 recent runs per profile is too many or too few to read on one screen.
Detailed logging Support has asked you for it. It switches itself off after two days. See what Kyvero extensions log.

Import directory on the server and Write exports to can only be changed by an administrator who can install extensions. Both widen what Import/export may reach on this server (one is permission to read files, the other permission to write them), so they are not something a user group granted Import/export's own screen can change. Everybody who can see the card can read both; the form says so under each field.

Press Save and the card says it saved. Each key, its default and exactly what it changes is in the settings reference. The two credentials are never shown again once saved: the field's placeholder is all that says whether one is set, typing in it replaces it, and the tickbox beneath removes it.