Moving to WCMS 3 | Building the Next WCMS

The WCMS 3 migration project will be ending in the Spring 2024 term. Remediation support will not be offered after August 2024.

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 by our team to correct migration issues that occur during the migration process. This option requires a migration request ticket.
Requesting an empty WCMS 3 site to manually migrate content from a live site. If you plan on completely re-doing the content of your site, this may be the best option for you. A migration request ticket is also required for this option if you are planning to manually migrate content replacing the entire site and keeping the same URL.

Website lead site migration responsibilities

The Website lead is responsible for the following tasks during the migration process.

Submit a site migration request ticket.
Inform all of the site's content maintainers that the WCMS 2 live site will be on a content freeze until the site is finished remediation.
Complete WCMS 3 Essentials and WCMS 3 Web Forms courses available on LEARN.

The migration coordinator will reach out if the site requires preparation before migration.
Publish any content you want to be included in the migrated site. Draft, Archived, and Unpublished content will not migrate.
Delete, unpublish, or archive any unnecessary web content.

Review the comparison check spreadsheet attached to the migration request ticket. While you are reviewing the WCMS 3 staging site, this is a great opportunity to check for accessibility issues, typos and QA your site's content.
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 as close to the launch date as possible.
Encourage all content maintainers for the site to complete WCMS 3 courses on LEARN.
If the site is an authenticated site, reapply authenticated site settings. These settings do not migrate so it is your responsibility to reapply the settings.
If any changes were made to the live site after the migration date, it is your responsibility to also apply those changes to the WCMS 3 staging site.

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

Migration coordinator receives the migration request ticket from the website lead.
Site is reviewed and if preparation is required, the migration coordinator will reach out to the website lead.
Migration is scheduled for a Monday migration with consideration for the requested migration date.

A copy of the live site is copied to pilots.
Site is migrated using the migration script and a staging site created in WCMS 3.
Website lead is notified via the migration request ticket that remediation has begun. A content freeze during remediation is preferred.
Content migration specialist co-op team remediate the migration issues on the site by completing a comparison check of the live site and the migrated site.
A comparison check Excel spreadsheet is completed.

Website lead receives the comparison check spreadsheet via the migration request ticket.
Website lead reviews the site.
After the site is reviewed and any final edits made by the website lead and their team, a launch date is requested via the migration ticket.

Migration coordinator launches the site on the requested date (or a negotiated date if the date interferes with a WCMS update).
A copy of the original site is kept for 4 months after launch.

For migration related questions, reach out to the WCMS 3 migration coordinator Charlotte Armstrong.

For all other questions, submit a ticket via the WCMS help portal.