Important concepts and terminology

A handful of terms come up everywhere. This page explains them in the order you meet them; the glossary lists every term alphabetically.

Where things live#

Workspace. The container for everything you do: sites, configurations, uploads, team and plan. Creating an account creates a workspace. People can belong to several workspaces; the sidebar's workspace switcher chooses between them.

Site. One website you have connected: a WordPress or Joomla installation. A workspace has as many sites as its plan allows.

Connector. The small piece of software on your site that Content Uploader talks to. For WordPress it is a plugin, for Joomla an extension. It is the only thing that creates and updates content, and it uses the permissions of a real user on your site.

Content type. What you publish: Posts or Pages on WordPress, Articles on Joomla. Each content type has its own fields.

How a file becomes content#

Configuration. What you set up once: a name, a destination (site and content type), a record ID, the mapping of columns to fields, and what happens when a new file arrives. Every later file is checked with it.

Version. Each time you save a configuration with a changed mapping, it gets a new version number. A file is always checked with a particular version, and keeps it, so changing the mapping later never rewrites an earlier file's results.

Sample file. The file you use to set up a configuration. Its first row gives the column names the editor offers (or, in a file without a header row, its columns are named Column A, Column B and so on); its first rows feed the preview.

Upload (or run). One file, from the moment you drop it to the moment it is published or fails. Its page shows the four steps and the review.

Record ID. The column whose value identifies a row in every file. It is how Content Uploader knows that row 12 this week is the same item as row 12 last week. If your spreadsheet has no such column, Content Uploader can match by slug or title instead. See choosing the record ID.

Value mode. How a field gets its value. A field can come from a source column, a fixed value (the same for every row), a template that combines text and columns, the destination default, or be left unchanged on updates. Value modes explains each.

Template. Text with column names in double braces, such as {{ Product Name }} in {{ Location }}. See templates and placeholders.

Taxonomy and term. A taxonomy is a way of grouping content (categories, tags); a term is one entry in it (the category Guides). WordPress has several taxonomies, Joomla two.

What the review shows#

New, Updated, Unchanged, Errors, Skipped. The groups of the review. See how the review works.

Change set. The result of a check: the list of what would be created, updated, left alone or rejected. You approve it by pressing Publish.

Publishing result. What happened to one item when it was sent: published, already matched, published without a new image, or failed. Results are kept, and failed ones can be retried safely.

Allowance. The number of record writes (items created or updated) and the amount of image transfer a plan includes each month. Reviewing and checking never use it. See plans and allowances.