How to migrate from other plugins to WooCommerce Wholesale Pro
Migrating from WooCommerce Protected Categories
You might want to switch from our WooCommerce Protected Categories plugin to WooCommerce Wholesale Pro in order to take advantage of the purpose-built wholesale features. The exact process depends on whether you are currently using password protected categories (which do not require individual user accounts) or user/role protected categories.
Password protected categories
WooCommerce Wholesale Pro works by creating a wholesale user role. This means that each customer must have a user account to unlock the wholesale area, and will not require a separate password for your wholesale categories.
For convenience, it is likely that each customer already has a user account on your website - even though you are using password protection to restrict the wholesale area. If so, then you need to set up WooCommerce Wholesale Pro and then edit each user to change their role from 'customer' to a wholesale role. When they log into their existing account, they will have access to the new wholesale area.
If any of your existing wholesale customers do not have their own accounts yet, then you need to create them.
Once you have finished, you can either delete WooCommerce Protected Categories or remove the password protection from your wholesale categories because it is no longer required.
User or role protected categories
The user and role protection options in WooCommerce Protected Categories work with user accounts. You can easily switch to WooCommerce Wholesale Pro by setting up the plugin, and then editing each user to change their role from 'customer' to a wholesale role. When they log into their existing account, they will have access to the new wholesale area.
The user and role protection options in WooCommerce Protected Categories are fully compatible with WooCommerce Wholesale Pro. This means that you can continue using WooCommerce Protected Categories to manage the category visibility if required.
Alternatively, you can remove WooCommerce Protected Categories and allow WooCommerce Wholesale Pro to restrict access to the wholesale area. This is a good idea if you want the same customers to be able to access both your public and wholesale products, which isn't possible with WooCommerce Protected Categories.
Migrating from other WooCommerce wholesale plugins
Most other WooCommerce wholesale plugins, such as Wholesale Suite, work by creating a wholesale user role. This is different from the user role created by WooCommerce Wholesale Pro, but you can easily migrate your existing users to the new role using the instructions below.
How to change existing users to a WooCommerce Wholesale Pro user role
There are 2 easy ways to convert your existing wholesale users to one of the new roles created by WooCommerce Wholesale Pro:
Do it manually for each user
- Go to the Users page in the WordPress admin.
- Edit each of your existing wholesale users.
- From the 'Role' dropdown, change the role to one of the new roles created by WooCommerce Wholesale Pro.
- When they next log into their account, they will have access to the new wholesale area created by WooCommerce Wholesale Pro.
Do it in bulk
- Go to the Users page in the WordPress admin.
- Use the checkboxes to multi-select all the users who you wish to move to a new wholesale role.
- Use the 'Change role to' dropdown to select one of the new wholesale roles and click 'Change'.
- When your wholesale users next log into their account, they will have access to the new wholesale area created by WooCommerce Wholesale Pro.