3 Tips for a Successful Ektron to Drupal Conversion

1 ©2017 Acquia Inc. — Confidential and Proprietary

Greg Kihlström, CEO, Carousel30 @carousel30Brian Browning, SVP, Ameex Technologies Inc.

3 Tips to a Successful Ektron to Drupal Conversion


Introduction– Since January 2015 when Ektron and Episerver

were combined into a single company and CMS platform, many organizations have been making the choice to move their website to a different platform

– Drupal has been a natural fit given its extensive feature set, flexibility, and open source community


IntroductionContent strategy is an important part of an website migration:– What content will be rewritten?– What content will be reorganized?– What content will be migrated?


Content Migration– Definition of Content Migration– Manual Migration– Ektron XLIFF File Migration– Custom ETL Migration


What is content migration?– Always a major part of any website conversion or

migration– Can require multiple approaches depending on the

complexity of your needs– Structured and unstructured content require different

approaches– As-is migration

– Examples: Press releases, existing documents


Methods of content migration1. Manual migration

– Simplest technically speaking, but can be the most time-consuming

2. Exporting an XLIFF (XML) file 3. A custom ETL process

– Most complex of the three, requiring custom coding


Method 1: Manual Migration


Manual Content Migration– Easiest method, but most time-

consuming– Difficulty ranges depending on the

amount of:– Existing HTML/CSS styles– Requirement to restyle new content

(vs. having more structured data fields)

– Can range from 4-8 pages/hour to more for more complicated content


Manual Content Migration– Stay organized:

– Track all existing URLs in a spreadsheet to use as a “map”

– For new content:– Create “content outlines” that allow you to create

fields for each type of structured data– Think of it as a map of your content types in a Word

doc that’s easy for content writers to use


Manual Content Migration– Make sure Drupal is set up correctly:

– Match Drupal to your content outlines– Clearly define what types of content will

receive which styles if manual styling (H1 tags, etc.) is required

– Try to limit manual migration where possible


Method 2: XLIFF File Migration


XLIFF File Migration– XLIFF

– Ektron’s localization feature to get the content we need.

– XLIFF: XML Localisation Interchange File Format) – Files are available through the language export

feature, Available even if the site is in a single language


XLIFF File Migration– XLIFF files include all content, menus and taxonomy. – The trick is understanding the files and what to do with them. – While it doesn’t include everything, it does include:

– Published status– Page URL– Meta Information– Page Title– Page Text Content


XLIFF File Migration– For several reasons, the format will not tell you

where the page exists in the site structure – We recommended exporting in logical groups.

– Think in terms of creating sets of XLIFF files that are of the same content type, or in the same section. – We will call these “migration sets.”


XLIFF File Migration– Before we explore the

concept of migration sets a little bit further, let’s take a look at some of the <body> information of an XLIFF file:


XLIFF File Migration– Similar to the previous

code snippet, you can see a properly XML-formatted document that, in this case shows the meta information.


XLIFF File MigrationMigration Sets– Import individual sets of XLIFF files– Modify content types to include “migration set” field


XLIFF File Migration– Display migration data while viewing page as admin


XLIFF File Migration– Editing a page can

show even more detail to an administrator/content editor:


Method 3: Custom ETL Migration


Custom Automated ETL Migration– The third method of content migration is the most complex of

the three– Offers a single, comprehensive solution that matches all needs– The customer automated approach uses technology to

conduct an ETL process: – Extract – Transform – Load


Custom Automated ETL Migration– How Does It Work?

– Scripts extract content from the source database– Moves content to the Transform database

– Once in the Transform database, content is:– Scrubbed, or parsed, to remove things like inline

styles or broken HTML– Styles are applied as appropriate– Crosslinks are updated


Custom Automated ETL Migration– The role of Data Mapping

– Because content lives in different locations from the old site to the new, we must map content locations from the old to the new

– Content is mapped, along with assets (files, media, etc)– Source and Destination URLs are generated and mapped– Taxonomies, Menus and other Related Content is mapped

– Load into the Destination Site Database– Use the Drupal API to automate the loading of the transformed

content– Assigns content through modules as needed


Custom Automated ETL Migration– Exception Handling

– It often takes multiple runs of the content migration scripts to complete the entire process

– Why? Most source content isn’t consistent– As successive runs of the migration scripts are conducted,

content that doesn’t follow normal rules is identified– Migration scripts are updated to accommodate variations in

source content– We term this approach the “Multiple Pass Method”


Custom Automated ETL Migration– Benefits of the Multiple Pass Method

– Once the scripts have been developed, and exceptions handled, the same script can be run over and over

– Baseline migration moves 100% of all content– Delta migration(s) move the 10% - 25% of content that changes during

testing, training and related activities prior to launch – Using this approach, we can avoid lengthy content freezes

– No need to force authors to stop editing content since we can simply run the same scripts to migrate updated content

– This is especially important when considering specialized content, like user-generated or social content


Conclusion


Recap– Almost any content migration will require more than a

single method– Each method has its own benefits and cases where

it works best– Planning ahead will save time and missteps– Document the steps required and make sure to

prepare plenty of specific direction that may be required for manual formatting of content


Questions?


Thank You

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3 Tips for a Successful Ektron to Drupal Conversion