The Need

Migrating a website from one platform to another could be a little complex if it’s not carefully planned and well-executed. Our client’s US website was previously maintained in Drupal CMS. However, they did not want their website to be administered on an open-source CMS platform. So, they decided to migrate the website from Drupal to a familiar platform – Umbraco. Our client has already managed numerous websites with Umbraco, and they believed Umbraco was the best solution to migrate. Our client’s IT team needed CMS migration within a business-defined timeframe. However, they encountered several challenges. They were looking for a long-term partner who could define clear objectives and understand business workflows.

When the global nutrition brand collaborated with Ameex Technologies for a migration project, Ameex began to establish objectives and define tasks so that everyone would be on the same page and resources could be allocated appropriately. Planning, preparing the site for migration, updating, and testing make up a typical migration project. Technology-specific methodologies must be followed to ensure a smooth transition and expert attention throughout the migration from Drupal CMS to Umbraco CMS.

Aside from choosing a new CMS platform Umbraco, our client needed to migrate the existing business flows to the newer platform on time. This would require meticulous planning as well as hours of backend content processing. Despite the CMS migration, there were several roadblocks, including

A strong roadmap was required for a smooth transition and minimal downtime while migrating from another platform and upgrading to the newest version within the CMS. The client started to search for a solution to address their concerns about smooth migration, scalability, security, and flexibility. They decided to collaborate with Ameex technology to ease their workloads.

Ameex’s solution - Technology Snapshot

The Ameex team and the global nutrition brand decided on the Umbraco platform because of its excellent structure and outstanding user experience. They believed Umbraco would provide them with the greatest customization options for creating the backend experience they needed for their team and handling critical security issues to meet IT compliance requirements.

Umbraco Decoupled Solution Architecture

Ameex used the waterfall approach and developed a strategic roadmap to migrate from Drupal to Umbraco within the timeline. Our client’s US website was developed using Umbraco, React with NextJS, and Shopify. They wanted to use React as their front-end. However, the page templates and components needed to be handled dynamically from the backend. Our technical architects proposed Umbraco’s Grid Layout feature to our client, making it practical to deploy based on the client’s business needs. We leveraged the Umbraco Grid Layout and added custom properties to the Grid row settings to reveal or conceal the page portion for specific users who were logged in and those who were not.

Similarly, we developed a new SEO plug-in and easily incorporated it into the back office, allowing the Global Nutrition Brand to check and view SEO recommendations for the page directly in the back office. We used Umbraco’s multi-domain administration feature to create distinct content structures and domain settings for each language.

Ameex built a custom module and used Umbraco application events to configure and execute it regularly, generating the sitemap automatically. We also utilized Umbraco to store all configuration information and REST APIs to connect to the CDP platform for user management.

We had developed a custom Umbraco app plug-in to integrate our client’s Shopify products onto the website. We used Shopify APIs to bring the products with drag-and-drop functionality to the back office. Ameex explored all of Umbraco’s capabilities and discovered every conceivable way to add value to the global nutrition brand. In a decoupled approach, the client wanted to update the UI for each component as they dragged and dropped them into the grid layout. Umbraco allowed them to add a custom view to a component to match their needs.

Umbraco also allows you to create a hierarchical structure, which enabled Ameex to tag content on multiple levels of taxonomy for article categorization. To meet ADA standards, the global nutrition brand requested additional graphical qualities. Ameex experts used Umbraco to add new features to the existing image type to meet the requirements.

Ameex completed a large-scale CMS migration for the global nutrition brand that involved developing an entirely new Umbraco backend, introducing more custom plug-ins, enhancing the content creation process, and customizing to meet their marketing and content team’s requirements. With the ability to update pages, the entire marketing team no longer needed to rely on their development team whenever they needed to create a new page for the website.

Results:

After the migration, our client’s marketing and content efforts were significantly more efficient and streamlined. They had increased customer revenue and user transactions following the migration. Ameex Technologies help the client leverage Umbraco to its full potential to integrate business tools and solutions into the client’s website, which enabled them to continue to scale their global business and revamp their digital experience.

From technology frameworks to content-driven commerce experiences, Umbraco can fit seamlessly into your business, just as it did for the global nutrition brand. Talk to us today!