Our PQA/PLATO Testing team was engaged by Blue Spurs, an industry-leading software development firm in Eastern Canada, to complete a large-scale content migration project using the content management system, Drupal.

The Business Challenge:

In order to present a unified web presence for the end client, our team was tasked with migrating 24 domains, with approximately 1200 pages, from multiple content management systems into one instance of Drupal. This project included the migration of all images, and HTML markup from the existing domain to the appropriate Drupal components in the new environment.

The Solution:

To tackle the organization of the content migration project and keep all of the members of the team working together in a cohesive way, Trello was used to develop a migration pipeline. The pipeline allowed our content migrators to follow a specific flow so that each team member followed a repeatable path that included migrating the HTML markup, CSS, images, and finally, the quality assurance activities, including content validation and verification.

In order to maintain the site’s searchability and search engine optimization, URL routing was updated, including page, link and image destination links. Because the original pages did not follow a uniform template design, our team also updated old branding references to meet the new branding requirements. Finally, testing was performed to ensure the quality and accuracy of the migrated content. To help in testing the volume of pages, a script was developed using Python to scan the existing pages to understand their structure, images and components before the content was migrated. Once the content had been moved, another script was used to make sure that the migration was successful.

Leveraging the testing expertise of the PQA Testing team, a visual and systematic comparison of each migrated page was conducted to ensure that each of the elements from the originating content was transferred and transformed, as necessary, to conform to the new content management system and standards. PQA advocates for testing in most occasions, but it was thought vital in this situation due to the multiple content sources.

The Impact:

“Blue Spurs has experienced the value of PQA/PLATO’s Content Migration service first hand. We were amazed by what they notice, and our client was in awe of what PQA/PLATO showed us. I never worry about content migration or QA now. Our client has the same confidence. And, she was very impressed with the process your team led us through. I have to let you know how much we enjoy working with the PQA/PLATO team. I continue to be impressed with your responsiveness and proactive service. Truly great job!”

Categories: Content Migration