Alchemer Reviews

A WordPress plugin to fetch Alchemer survey responses and manage them as reviews in your WordPress dashboard.

Description

Alchemer Reviews creates a bridge between your Alchemer (formerly SurveyGizmo) surveys and WordPress. The plugin fetches survey responses and stores them as review posts in WordPress. It's perfect for businesses looking to collect and manage customer feedback from Alchemer surveys.

Features

• Custom 'Reviews' post type for managing review content
• Seamless integration with the Alchemer API
• Field mapping to convert survey questions to review fields
• Manual and automatic import of survey responses
• Newest responses imported first (reverse chronological order)
• Uses reviewer name as the review title for better identification
• Automatically skips responses with no rating or empty comments
• Protection for manually edited reviews to prevent overwriting during imports
• Custom meta boxes for rating information
• Admin columns with review content and rating for easy management

Installation

1. Upload the alchemer-reviews folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
3. Configure your Alchemer API credentials in the 'Reviews > Settings' page
4. Map your survey questions to review fields in the 'Reviews > Field Mapping' page
5. Import your reviews manually or set up automatic daily imports

API Configuration

1. Navigate to 'Reviews > Settings' in your WordPress admin panel
2. Enter your Alchemer API Token and API Token Secret (available in your Alchemer account)
3. Enter the Survey ID for the survey containing your reviews
4. Click 'Test API Connection' to verify your credentials work
5. Save your settings

Important: When entering your API Token Secret, make sure to copy it exactly as shown in your Alchemer account, including any special characters like '%2F'. These characters are part of the token and must be preserved.

Field Mapping

After configuring your API settings, you need to map your survey questions to the appropriate review fields:

1. Navigate to 'Reviews > Field Mapping'
2. Enter the ID of your rating question (e.g., "83") - this is the question that contains both the rating value (in the "answer" field) and the review content (in the "comments" field)
3. Optionally, map the reviewer name question if your survey collects this information
4. Enable or disable automatic daily imports based on your preference
5. Save your settings

Note: Reviews without ratings or with empty comments will be skipped during import. Reviewer names will be used as review titles.

Importing Reviews

Manual Import

1. Go to 'Reviews > Field Mapping' or 'Reviews > Settings'
2. Click 'Import Reviews Now'
3. Wait for the import process to complete

Automatic Import

1. Go to 'Reviews > Field Mapping'
2. Check the 'Automatically import new reviews daily' option
3. Save your settings

The plugin will always import the newest responses first. This ensures that your most recent customer feedback gets added to your site immediately.

Manually Edited Reviews Protection

The plugin includes a system to protect reviews that have been manually edited from being overwritten during imports:

1. When you edit a review's content in WordPress, it's automatically marked as "Manually Edited"
2. You can see this status in the "Manually Edited" column in the reviews list
3. You can also manually toggle this status in the review edit screen
4. During imports, if a survey response matches an existing review that is marked as manually edited, it will be skipped
5. This allows you to make corrections or improvements to reviews without worrying about them being overwritten

This feature is particularly useful when you want to fix typos, improve formatting, or update content in reviews while still regularly importing new survey responses.

Troubleshooting

• API Connection Issues: Ensure your API Token and API Token Secret are entered exactly as shown in your Alchemer account, including any special characters.
• No Reviews Importing: Check your field mappings to ensure they correspond to the correct question IDs in your survey.
• Missing Reviews: Remember that reviews without ratings or empty comments are skipped during import.
• Protected Reviews: Reviews marked as "Manually Edited" won't be updated during imports. If you want a review to be updated, uncheck the "Manually edited" option in the review edit screen.

Credits

Developed by [Your Name/Company]