Duplicate listings as drafts upon import using WP All Imports plugin

You will have to delete and re-start. The real question is why are you doing it this way instead of the recommended way?

And if you attempt to use the update features with the sold list, your server will not survive 🙁

So you’re saying it’s less taxing on the server to completely delete and re-upload all data, images etc, of all the listings, rather than to just check what needs updating and update that instead?
— Night and day difference, images are the killer.

Well, for one thing, wouldn’t a replacement reset the post published date?
— Yes it does.
— This setup is more important for sold/leased as they don’t change after they become sold. (they can but from the sites we’ve setup this data doesn’t change)

— Nothing stopping you from configuring the current listings to update, its just that you cant change the current import script, you need to delete and re-configure your import to behave differently. You’ll have to try different options to see what works best. The normal solution is optomised for server load and to set and forget.

My client wants to be able to order them manually.
— If they want fine control over the website, then they can manually enter listings in the site and skip importing. or work with your own script configuration.

But the main reason at the moment I want to just update, is because every time I do a re-run of the import it wipes my manually set property_authority and property_auction. And these are too important to lose.
— Your setup is incorrect for this. All you should be doing is adding the auction date to property_auction. Then use get_custom_meta in your custom template and display the date.
— Your update sulution will cause you 10x more issues. Correct the way you are handling the auction field and then you will not have to update.

— For the order use another custom post type and get the client to enter in the uniqueid of they listings and the order they want it in. Then use a custom loop to output the listings based on the new order.

Ditto with the ‘featured’ custom field. I’ve set the update to not update any of these fields.
— property_featured is not included in the REAXML format (it is, but it meants your client is adding a $3000 featured listing to RealEstate.com.au) so that cannot be relied on to set a featured listing.

They’re just being set to draft, then I delete.
— Why?

Unfortunately there is no way to compare mod-time and why we recommend using both fields {uniqueID[1]}{./@modTime} as a unique identifier. Then it only imports updated records and you can set WP All Import to not update and delete missing records.

Until we complete Listing Sync this is the best was to configure WP All Import Pro