How to make users import into Liferay

Hello,
    It is often need to imoprt some users into liferay automatically. This post I'll show you how it can be done.
   

    Importing can be done in few ways:
           1) Use IMacros plugin fo firefox.  This plugin allows you to automate UI registration form filling.
      
           2) Some user import application can be developed. This application will read user data from CSV file, transform it to UserBean, and then store it to Liferay with UserLocalServiceUtil.
            As a source of user data for this application we will use CSV file with next format:

      username;email;firstName;lastName;password;male
      paul;paul@paul.com;Paul;Paul;paul;true
      ann;ann@ann.com;Ann;Ann;ann;false

            First line is column names, we will need it while reading and transforming data

           As CSV reading and parsing library I used Super CSV, it allows to read and transfrom rows as beans, here you may find some samples.
           Main code for reading and parsing users:

  //username,email,firstName,lastName,password,male
  final CellProcessor[] processors = new CellProcessor[] {null, null, null, null, null, new ParseBool()};

  public List&ltUserBean&gt readUsers() {
 ICsvBeanReader inFile = null;
 List&ltUserBean&gt users = new ArrayList&ltUserBean&gt();
 try {
   inFile = new CsvBeanReader(new FileReader(FileUtils.toFile(this.getClass()
    .getResource("/users.csv"))), CsvPreference.EXCEL_NORTH_EUROPE_PREFERENCE);

   final String[] header = inFile.getCSVHeader(true);

   LOGGER.info("Reading users with properties: " + Arrays.toString(header) + " from CSV file.");
   UserBean user;
   while ((user = inFile.read(UserBean.class, header, processors)) != null) {
  users.add(user);
   }
   LOGGER.info(users.size() + " users were read from CSV file.");
 } catch (FileNotFoundException fnfe) {
   LOGGER.error("Can't find CSV file with users " + fnfe);
 } catch (IOException ioe) {
   LOGGER.error("IOException " + ioe);
 } finally {
   try {
  inFile.close();
   } catch (IOException e) {
   }
 }
 return users;
  }

        CellProcessor allows to parse fields to appropriate format.
        As you can see method returns list of user beans, which can be used to store users in to liferay, here how it is done:

private User addLiferatUser(final ActionRequest request,
     final UserBean userBean) {
 User user = null;
 try {
   ThemeDisplay themeDisplay = (ThemeDisplay) request.getAttribute(WebKeys.THEME_DISPLAY);

   long creatorUserId = themeDisplay.getUserId(); // default liferay user
   long companyId = themeDisplay.getCompanyId(); // default company
   boolean autoPassword = false;
   String password1 = userBean.getPassword();
   String password2 = userBean.getPassword();
   boolean autoScreenName = false;
   String screenName = userBean.getUsername();
   String emailAddress = userBean.getEmail();
   long facebookId = 0;
   String openId = "";
   Locale locale = themeDisplay.getLocale();
   String firstName = userBean.getFirstName();
   String middleName = "";
   String lastName = userBean.getLastName();

   int prefixId = 0;

   int suffixId = 0;
   boolean male = userBean.isMale();

   int birthdayMonth = 5;
   int birthdayDay = 5;
   int birthdayYear = 1980;
   String jobTitle = "";

   long[] groupIds = null;
   long[] organizationIds = null;
   long[] roleIds = null;

   long[] userGroupIds = null;

   boolean sendEmail = false;

   ServiceContext serviceContext = ServiceContextFactory.getInstance(request);

   user = UserLocalServiceUtil.addUser(creatorUserId,
            companyId,
            autoPassword,
            password1,
            password2,
            autoScreenName,
            screenName,
            emailAddress,
            facebookId,
            openId,
            locale,
            firstName,
            middleName,
            lastName,
            prefixId,
            suffixId,
            male,
            birthdayMonth,
            birthdayDay,
            birthdayYear,
            jobTitle,
            groupIds,
            organizationIds,
            roleIds,
            userGroupIds,
            sendEmail,
            serviceContext);

   user.setPasswordReset(false);
   user = UserLocalServiceUtil.updateUser(user);
   
   UserLocalServiceUtil.updateStatus(user.getUserId(), WorkflowConstants.STATUS_APPROVED);
 } catch (PortalException e) {
   LOGGER.error(e);
 } catch (SystemException e) {
   LOGGER.error(e);
 }
 return user;
  }

    Complete code of userimport portlet you can find here.
    You can deploy it to Liferay:

add to page and press Import:

 it will read users from users.csv:

and add to Liferay:

   
BR,
Paul Butenko