Advanced & Tools

Advanced & Tools

The Advanced tab has tools for importing and exporting settings, managing cached data, and performing site-maintenance tasks. Go to BuddyPress > Friend & Follow Suggestion > Advanced.

Most of these actions are irreversible. Read each section carefully before clicking.

Export Settings

Downloads all plugin settings (General, Display, Notifications) as a JSON file. Use this to:

• Back up your configuration before making changes.
• Copy settings from one site to another.

Click Export Settings. Your browser downloads a bffs-settings.json file.

Import Settings

Restores settings from a previously exported JSON file.

1. Click Choose File and select a bffs-settings.json file.
2. Click Import Settings.

All current settings are replaced by the values in the imported file. The plugin validates the file format before writing — malformed files are rejected.

Reset Settings

Resets all plugin settings to their factory defaults. This does not affect:

• Dismissal data saved by members (which members each member has hidden from their suggestions).
• Analytics data.
• Email templates.

A confirmation modal appears before any data is changed.

Cache Management

The plugin caches suggestion lists per member using WordPress transients (or the object cache if one is installed). The cache expiry is 1 hour by default, and the cache is automatically cleared when a member updates their profile.

Clear Cache — clears all cached suggestion lists immediately. Use this after:

• Changing the matching field configuration.
• Adding a large number of new members.
• Importing profile field data in bulk.

After clearing, the next request for each member’s suggestions recalculates from scratch. On large communities this can make the first page load after a cache clear noticeably slower as scores are recalculated.

Analytics

The plugin logs suggestion impressions and interaction events (dismiss, connect, follow) in WordPress options.

Reset Analytics — permanently clears all logged analytics data. A confirmation dialog appears because this cannot be undone.

Export Analytics CSV — downloads a CSV file of all tracked events. Use this to analyse suggestion performance or to import the data into a spreadsheet.

The analytics data is stored in wp_options and is retained indefinitely unless you reset it here or set a retention period (the default retention period is 365 days, managed automatically by a weekly cron job).

Email Templates

Reinstall Email Templates — deletes and recreates the plugin’s BuddyPress email posts. Use this if:

• An email template was accidentally deleted.
• You want to restore the default subject line or body after editing.
• You upgraded from a version before 1.7.4 and the welcome email is not sending.

This does not affect any other BuddyPress emails. Your custom edits to plugin email templates will be lost; export them first if you want to preserve them.

Clear All Data

Clear All Plugin Data — permanently deletes all plugin options, per-user dismissal lists, and analytics data. Use this only if you want to fully reset the plugin as if it were newly installed. It does not deactivate the plugin or delete email templates.

This cannot be undone.