On MLS PIN feeds a listing carries the agent and office identifiers, and the names sit on separate member and office records. MLSImport looks those names up for you and stores them on the property, so a listing can show the agent’s name and the brokerage name rather than a code.
This is built into the plugin. There is nothing to install, nothing to enable, and no setting for it.
Which sites it applies to
- Your MLS is one of the two MLS PIN datasets served through Bridge. On any other MLS the lookup does not run.
- You are running a supported theme. The lookup targets theme property post types, so standalone mode is not covered and does not need it, because standalone stores the feed’s own agent fields on each property already.
- Your Bridge server token is saved in your MLS credentials, since the same token authorises the lookup.
Two fields have to be imported
The lookup starts from the listing itself. It reads ListAgentMlsId and ListOfficeMlsId from the property, and a property that does not carry them gives it nothing to look up.
Open the Select Import fields tab and confirm both are among your imported fields. They can be marked private so they never appear on the front end, which is the usual choice: they are identifiers, not content.
What happens, and when
The lookup runs the first time a property page is opened, not during the import. Until someone opens a given property, that property has no names stored.
- The page opens and MLSImport reads the two identifiers off the property.
- It asks the Bridge Data Output API for that member record and that office record.
- The agent’s full name is saved to the property as
memberfullnameand the office name asofficename, both in lower case. - The property is flagged as checked, so no further page view repeats the request.
One attempt is made per property, and the flag is set whether the attempt succeeded or not. That is what keeps a feed with missing member records from generating a request on every page view forever.
The very first view of each property is slightly slower because of these two requests. On a fresh import of several thousand listings that cost is spread across real visits over weeks, which is the point of doing it on view rather than during the import.
Showing the two names on the property page
The values are stored on the property, and your theme decides whether they are displayed. Add two custom fields to your theme’s own custom fields list, named officename and memberfullname, and give them the labels you want visitors to read, for example Office Name and Agent.
Use those exact spellings, all in lower case. A theme custom field reads the meta key literally, so OfficeName finds nothing.
If the names do not appear
- Nothing shows on any property. The custom fields are not in the theme’s list yet, or they are spelled with capitals. The values can be present and invisible at the same time.
- Nothing shows on one property. Open it and look for
listagentmlsidandlistofficemlsid. If they are empty, that listing carries no identifiers and there is nothing to resolve. - The lookup ran before the fields were imported. That property is already flagged as checked and will not try again. Delete it and import it again to give it a fresh attempt.
Fix the imported fields before you send the site any traffic. The one attempt per property is spent on the first view, so a site that goes live with the identifiers missing burns that attempt on every listing a visitor happens to open.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get agent names this way on a different MLS?
Not through this lookup, which is wired to the MLS PIN datasets only. On other feeds, tick ListAgentFullName and ListOfficeName in your imported fields, since most feeds carry the names on the listing itself.
Why are the names stored in lower case?
They are saved lower case so they match consistently wherever they are compared. If you want them capitalised on screen, that is a CSS choice in your theme rather than a change to the stored value.
Does this create agent profiles on my site?
No. It stores two text values on each property. Agent profiles are posts you create yourself and attach to an import task.
Does the lookup count against my MLS data limits?
It makes at most two requests per property, once, against the same Bridge account your listings come from. If your agreement has request limits, that is the account they are counted on.
Related
- Importing agents and showing listings by agent
- Attribution fields and courtesy of text
- The Select Import fields screen
- Bridge Interactive: getting your credentials
Send us one MLS number from an MLS PIN listing that shows no agent name and we will tell you which of the three causes it is.