PDHlibrary

Goal

Project required a site migration from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 for which there was no automated migration path. The goal was to deliver just the minimum viable project to meet scope/quality, concrete deliverables, deadline, and budget.

The objective setting and approach

As usual, when we collaborate with a client for a migration project, we begin by establishing objectives and defining tasks so that everyone is on the same page and resources can be allocated appropriately. The typical Drupal migration project consists of planning, preparing the site for migration, upgrading, and testing. With the Drupal CMS, there will be platform-specific methodologies that need to be followed to ensure a trouble-free migration. Data handling in particular needs expert-level attention.

In this instance, the minimum viable project required:

• Migrated website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7
  • All content and custom Content Types.
  • All files, including the dynamic generated certificate.
  • All Users and Roles.
  • All Taxonomy terms.
  • All Views, including Views supporting per-page dynamic content based on keywords.
  • All custom Webforms.
• Recreated and improved Views as per required.
• Implemented complex role-based access control.
• Customized Quiz module for end users to see quiz results.
• Implemented a fully responsive theme based on existing design.
• Expanded content manager tools to support:
  • Link checking
  • Maintain all SEO meta information like title, description, and headings
• Upgrade old ecommerce module to give support in Drupal 7.
• Implement Drupal Commerce and integrate Quiz/Result module with Drupal Commerce.
• Upgrade PHP version from 5.x to 7.x.

Biggest Challenges

• Rebuilding of the site theme.
• Fully reimplementing the complex access control across the site.
• Replace ecommerce 6.x module with Drupal Commerce 1.X and integrate with Quiz section.
• Customize login flow, so users can login to Drupal 7 with same password which they are using in Drupal 6.
• For all quiz views, it was required to update and connect with Drupal Commerce.
• Keep all the old view of ecommerce module which are related to sales.

The Solution

• Customize the Responsive Bartik theme as per requirement so there was truly little or no change to the look and feel.
• Set Access Permission in Drupal 7 for each role and user.
• Customize the Drupal core login feature so existing user can login with old password.
• To Connect Drupal Commerce with Quiz, updated all Quiz views and added Drupal commerce field/data as per requirement.

Result

The migrated Drupal 7.x ecommerce site resulted in improved functionality, performance, usability, security, and mobile readiness. Not limited to this, it positioned them to maximize website’s potential as a sales channel.