Moving to WCMS 3

There are two main options for the creation of a WCMS 3 site:

  • Migration of an existing site into WCMS 3. This option includes remediation of your site to correct migration issues that occur during the migration process.
  • Requesting a brand new WCMS 3 site. If you plan on completely re-doing the content of your site, this may be the best option for you.

The Website Lead is responsible for sending in a request for a WCMS 3 site. Before requesting a migration of an existing site, please review the WCMS 3 site migration preparation checklist page and prepare your site accordingly.

Migration process

This process is subject to change as migration from WCMS 2 to WCMS 3 continues to improve.

Before migration

  1. Website lead reviews the migration preparation checklist and notifies site managers and content maintainers that the site is being prepared for migration.
  2. Website lead reviews the site owner role description and decides which users should be site owners of the site.
  3. Website lead submits one Request a WCMS 3 Migration form per site, includes a preferred migration date (we appreciate being notified in advance) and chooses who shall complete remediations. We highly recommend that our team remediate migration issues to ensure an efficient use of time and accuracy. This form creates an ticket and all further information is communicated via the ticket. The options are:
     
    • Remediation by the WCMS Team: remediation will be completed by WCMS content migration specialist team. Our team of migration specialists are very efficient in remediating sites.
    • Remediation by your team: remediation completed by your own team (remediation training must be completed prior to site migration). If you plan on reviewing and editing a large quantity of your content, this may be a good option for you.
    • Collaborative remediation: your team remediates web pages, the WCMS team remediates all other content types. This is the most efficient way to remediate large/complex sites.
    • Manual migration by your team: migration of content from existing WCMS site by your own team to a blank WCMS 3 site. If you are planning on completely restructuring your site, this is a good option but may take significant time.
  4. Site is reviewed and if more information or migration preparation is required, the migration coordinator, Charlotte Armstrong, will reach out to schedule a migration planning meeting.

Choosing a migration date

There are some important items to take into consideration when choosing a migration date.

  1. Content freeze: We recommend a content freeze on the migration date and for the remediation period. Changes made to the live site will not show on the migrated copy and we ask that the live site not be updated while our team is remediating the site. This is because remediation involves a comparison check of the site and if the live site has changes made to it, this will affect accuracy.
  2. Migration pause: Site movement, including migrations, site creations and launches, are paused for three weeks between terms. This pause includes the last week of term, the week between terms, and the first week of the following term.

    Migration and remediation

    1. On the day of migration, the WCMS team creates a copy of the WCMS 2 to pilots. The pilots site will be available for four months after the site is launched.
    2. The WCMS team migrates the site using a migration script and a WCMS 3 staging site is created. The WCMS team configures the site and applies the site owner roles as requested in the original migration request form.
    3. The website lead is notified via the ticket that site remediation has begun by our WCMS migration specialist team, or if the website lead has chosen to remediate the site in their own faculty/department, a link to the WCMS 3 staging site is provided.
    4. A comparison check of all published items on the current live site and the migrated WCMS 3 site is reviewed. Remediations are completed accordingly using the instructions provided on the WCMS 3 remediation training page.

    Website lead responsibilities:

    1. Inform all of the site's content maintainers that the WCMS 2 live site is on a content freeze until the site is finished remediation.
    2. Encourage all content maintainers to complete WCMS 3 Essentials and WCMS 3 Web Forms courses available on LEARN.

    After remediation

    If the WCMS team remediated the site: the WCMS team responds to the ticket and includes a copy of the completed comparison check spreadsheet. If any content related errors are noticed, the issue is highlighted on the Excel spreadsheet for the website lead and their team to review and correct before launch.

    While reviewing the WCMS 3 staging site, this is a great opportunity to check for accessibility issues, typos and QA your site's content.

    The website lead responds to the ticket when the site has been reviewed and is ready to launch and the WCMS team adds the site to the launch queue. Site launches occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

    Website lead responsibilities

    • If the WCMS migration specialists remediated the site, thoroughly review the comparison check spreadsheet attached to the migration request ticket. Any content issues that require your attention are highlighted in yellow and urgent issues are highlighted in red on the spreadsheet. These issues may include errors on the source site (broken links, typos, accessibility issues etc.). The migration specialist team does not correct content during the remediation process.
    • Review/edit the content of the Description of Content field (found under the Edit tab) on each web page, event, news item and blogs

    • Review/edit the content of the Summary field (found under the Edit tab) on each event, news item and blog

    • Review users, permissions and reapply expiry dates if necessary.

    • If any forms remained open since the date of the pilots site creation, export new submissions.

    • We recommend that you QA your site for accessibility, content improvement, and user experience while it is still in the staging environment.

    • Encourage all content maintainers for the site to complete WCMS 3 courses on LEARN.

    • If the site is an authenticated site, review and reapply authenticated site settings.

    • Respond to the original ticket with a launch request date. Launches occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays and must be requested at least one business day in advance.

    After launch

    The website lead is notified via the ticket that the site has launched. The copy of the WCMS 2 pilots site created on the date of migration will be deleted four months after launch. The WCMS 3 staging site is deleted one week from launch.

    Website lead responsibilities after launch

    Re-apply the Google Analytics tracking code if you are using Google Analytics

    If the site is an authenticated site, re-apply formatting.