Request: Is it possible to preserve original "Create Date" and "Create User" on Deploy Import?

[hfloyd]

Before the Deploy Export/Import tool was released, I used to do upgrades "in place" on an existing downloaded old-version database. This worked pretty well, but with the Deploy Import's ability to "upgrade" certain obsolete data formats (such as old Grid and Nested Content), there is a strong case for using that tool.

However, I noticed that when I did this for a recent upgrade migration, on Import all the content and media items were "Created" by myself with a Create Date of the Import. Logically, this makes sense, since on "import", the nodes are being created in the new environment, however, this caused a bit of an issue when it was discovered that a certain node type had been using the "create date" as the fallback value for an otherwise manually updated date property. Those nodes relying on the fall-back now all had incorrect dates, and there wasn't an easy way to "set" the date property with correct dates, since the original create dates were not present in the new environment.

I'm not sure if the underlying Umbraco core code would allow this, but it would be beneficial to set the "create date" (and user?) to match data from the exported environment. Content Editors often rely on the "Info" tab data to give them clues about how "old" content is and who originally added it, and it would be great if this data could be present even on migration.