Drupal Migration for University of Minnesota OIT
A complex and extensive Drupal migration built with future possibilities in mind
Introducing the Story of University of Minnesota OIT
OIT is the University of Minnesota's central IT unit and provides enterprise-level technologies and services that are broadly consumed and core to central administrative business operations.
Website: https://it.umn.edu/
The Challenge
The University of Minnesota's OIT website platform was Drupal 7, which was approaching its end of support and required a migration within UMN's Drupal enterprise environment.
During O8's work with OIT, flexibility was key to adjust to certain university services that were ending. The university was transitioning away from Google Search Appliance (GSA) with a much earlier deadline than the site migration completion. We implemented a version of SOLR search on the D7 site, which was later transitioned to D8.
In addition, during the main site migration project, the University transitioned away from its current ITSM to a new ITSM contract. Several functionality pieces, including a syncing feed of several thousand knowledge database articles, needed to change to work with the new ITSM.
Our Solutions
In-Depth Content Strategy and Organization - Including a detailed discovery, strategy, planning, and organization of migrating Drupal 7 data/content into a new Drupal 8 structure
ITSM Integration - A complex migration of content and syncing of content via a UMN intermediate hub site
SOLR Search - Including setup, configurations, and integration of SOLR search backend into Drupal's Search API
Customized Layout System - Integration of Drupal's Layout Builder, paragraphs, and customized elements into a flexible but more user-friendly system for dynamic content
UMN Self-Help Guide Functionality: Including migration and a clear upgrade path for other sites that use the custom UMN module and functionality
The Results
OIT accomplished the following goals:
- A complete restructure of the site to make information and articles more accessible and intuitive to find across all user groups
- Reduced redundant content
- A restructure of the site maintenance so that configurations can be easily performed using the admin UI
- Optimization of the site for increased performance
- New functionality and flexibility for future upgrades
- Migration of selected functionality and content into the new site platform and structure
- Strict Section 508 compliance of all site output for user accessibility to meet WCAG 2.0 AA guidelines
