Migrating to Discourse platform

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Hello everyone,

If we migrate to Discourse, how easy is it port historical forum content over to the new Discourse platform.

Also, in the future if we decide to move from Discourse and go back in-house, how easy is it to liberate/move the data out of Discourse back in-house?

Thanks for your help!

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

See /admin/backups on your install – you can export or import your data right from your web browser, any time you want.

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Thanks for the response!

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Also, I had a couple of additional questions with regards to getting Discourse set up:

• I realize Discourse has an in-built Analytics dashboard. If we want to add and report on additional custom metrics, how easy is it to add new code to query backend tables?
• How easy is it to create custom rules for users to build trust and develop custom badges?
• Finally, saw on the website that there are two different options for hosting the solution: on-premise and Discourse hosted? How do they differ in terms of features/support and how should one think about that?

Appreciate the help!

[riking (Kane York)]

@sandeepberi81

I realize Discourse has an in-built Analytics dashboard. If we want to add and report on additional custom metrics, how easy is it to add new code to query backend tables?

That’s certainly on the wishlist.

@sandeepberi81

How easy is it to create custom rules for users to build trust and develop custom badges?

Very easy, as long as you have someone that can write SQL.

@sandeepberi81

Finally, saw on the website that there are two different options for hosting the solution: on-premise and Discourse hosted? How do they differ in terms of features/support and how should one think about that?

Any non-hosted install will be supported here at Meta as long as it uses the Docker system.

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Thanks that sounds great.

Quick follow up: it seems like if we do a Discourse hosted installation, it’s currently not possible to write custom backend SQL queries to gather and report out on additional metrics. Is that correct?

Also, if we do on-premise, is it possible to query backend tables and create these custom metrics?

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Was just thinking, if we can get the session logs, then is it possible to analyze that to develop and create custom metrics?

[riking (Kane York)]

@sandeepberi81

Quick follow up: it seems like if we do a Discourse hosted installation, it’s currently not possible to write custom backend SQL queries to gather and report out on additional metrics. Is that correct?

Not automatically, unless you go through some awkward steps including running and downloading a backup automatically.

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Thanks @riking

So, to summarize, it is possible to analyze session logs to develop custom metrics as long we continually run and download a backup regularly through some script?

[riking (Kane York)]

Well, I think that the “user visit” and “post timings” tables should have enough data for you to analyze to start out.

[sandeepberi81 (Sandeep Beri)]

Thanks @riking.

Would the schema for these tables be available for me to look somewhere online? Thanks again!

[riking (Kane York)]

https://github.com/discourse/discourse/tree/master/app/models

Bottom of every file.