Key Things To Expect

Overview

This article covers several key assumptions that you need to know and understand to successfully execute your Classic-to-Current Migration project. It is important that all key leadership roles (Program Manager, Project Manager, Lead Implementer / Operator) involved in your overall CIM initiatives (Ecommerce and CRM) are aware of these items.

It includes the following sections:

The Migration Process
Content Management Time Periods (Sequence Diagrams)
Self-Service (It’s On You)
Things Have Changed (To Self-Service)
Need Help?
The Four (4) Things You Must Do
Platform / Feature Changes
Data/Content/Image/File Management
Extra Work
Typical Lead-Times

Note: a Migration project applies to customers that are moving from an existing “classic” (typically 2018 and earlier) Website Pipeline or CIMcloud platform to the newest version of the CIMcloud platform.

The Migration Process

The overall migration process consists of 5 stages, each with their own set of steps.

Classic Migrations Overview Key Things To Expect Migration Process Diagram C

The following article provides an overall summary and details on the stages and steps of the migration project, including the parts that you can expect CIMcloud to handle. This is critical information for your project manager and planner to understand when preparing your overall project plan.

Content Management Time Periods (Sequence Diagrams)

There are three (3) content management time periods you move through during your migration project. It is important that you understand what they are and how it impacts your work / responsibilities. The following provides basic diagrams of the content migration and management time periods (shown in sequence) that you move through before, during, and after a Migration project. It includes visual representations of 1) going from one platform to two platforms then back to one platform, 2) when the data and file copies occur, and 3) when / how the erp synced data happens.

Self-Service (It’s On You)

The standard migration process is a self-service project that falls mostly on you and your team. We have made significant investments in trying to minimize the work involved, but recognize that this is a project and you have work to do to make it successful. The parts of the process that are dependent on CIMcloud are identified in the “Process Details” section below.

Things Have Changed (To Self-Service)

The self-service approach is materially different then the way implementation projects were executed in the past. If your context with CIMcloud (Website Pipeline) was how your original (now “classic”) site was implemented, this will be a paradigm shift for you. In the classic days, we required a billable pro services engagement for all implementations. We used to staff client projects with heavily involved project managers and consultants. That is no longer the case. We have been undergoing a strategic initiative for several years to remove the requirement to buy professional services associated with the implementation of the CIMcloud platform / features. This shift allows you to the choice self-service, instead of being forced to pay “retail” prices for labor. This does shift the responsibility of planning, management, and implementation work to you. Along with this approach, our product R&D teams have worked to automate as much as possible, provide self-service help tools (like this help center) to help you understand i) what to do, and ii) how to do it.

Need Help?

There are several ways to get help with your project, from free resources to paid professionals.

If you want professional help with project management, consulting, content / data work, or growth / promotions (to increase adoption), CIMcloud is growing a 3rd party network of Implementation Partners that would be happy to assist you. Most will engage in a free initial sales consultation and then draft a Statement of Work and estimate for whatever you need. You can contact a Customer Success Manager for recommendations.

Four (4) Things You Must Do

All of the stages / steps in the migration process are required to have overall success on your project. After completing many migrations, we have found that these four (4) items are the “musts” to lay a proper foundation for overall project success.

Assign A Project Manager, and make sure they complete their onboarding checklist.
Assign A Lead Implementer/Operator, and make sure they complete their onboarding checklist.
Make sure the Lead Implementer/Operator has the capacity and skills to complete the implementation work (including data work, extensive testing & punchlisting, and go live roll-out work) in a timely fashion.
Identify the “Extra Work” required (if any) and have a plan & the resources needed to get the work done.

Platform / Features Changes

The CIMcloud platform has evolved significantly since your classic site was created. That’s good news, because there are lots of new features and capabilities you can tap into. We are also continually investing into new version of the platform which you will be able to more easily stay on once you complete the migration. With that said, there are changes to the way the platform works that implementers / operators of the platform will be to be aware of (so they can adjust as needed).

Here’s three key resources you can use to understand what’s in the latest version of CIMcloud and how it impacts you and your migration project.

CIMcloud Platform Overview – this is a menu of articles (with demo videos) walking through all of the major areas of the platform.
Key Differences That Impact Your Work / Data Management – this includes a listing of some of the key differences that may impact your day-to-day operations of the platform and/or the way you manage data / content.
Feature Take-Aways (Sorry About These!) – in additional to all of the cool new stuff, there are a few features that we removed (called “take-aways”) that have not been added back yet. Sorry for the inconvenience on this… our product teams know about these and are working to close the gaps. If you find anything else that you think we missed (that is not on the feature gaps list), please let us know. Here’s an article explaining how you can send us feature requests.

Data/Content/Image/File Management

The migration process involves an overlap period where you have two (2) separate platforms running at the same time. These are:

Your current live “classic” platform, and
The newly deployed CIMcloud platform that will replace it

Because of this fact, there is a deliberate content management strategy that has to take place during that overlap period to keep both platforms up to date and accurate. For the purpose of this section, the term “content” includes all product & content data (like product data, navigation links, web page content), all types of settings data (like shipping methods, tax settings, payment processing settings, coupons, etc), images, and digital files (like pdfs).

It is important to understand the content work you will have to do during this overlap period (by preparing the loaded the data via the worker portal) vs. the content work that will be done for you (via the ongoing ERP sync, Data Copy #1, Data Copy #2, Data Copy #3, and Image / File Copy #1).

For more details on content management during a migration project, you can reference the following two articles:

Extra Work

“Extra Work” is the term we use to describe several categories of additional work that extends the lead-time and typically the overall cost of a migration project. Extra work also adds additional steps in several stages of the process. As a general rule, we highly recommend deferring as much (or all) of the extra work as practical to a a future phase / project.

Extra work falls into these 6 categories:

Fringe Product Use-Cases/Gap
Data/Content Reengineering
New Feature Implementation
Migration of Existing Custom Mods
3rd Party ERP Connectors
Net New Custom Mods

This article products more details on Extra Work that Impacts Migration projects.

Typical Lead-Times

This is a high-level overview of what our customers typically experience with Classic-to-Current Migration projects.

Delayed Start Date – CIMcloud can have lead-times for migration deployments between 30 days and 6 months. Be sure reserve a spot and understand where you are in line before planning your schedule. Expedited lead-times may be available for additional pricing.
Once Started – The standard work can typically be completed in 1 to 3 months.
Extra Work – The extra work can typically add an additional 1 to 6 months to the project, depending on various factors described below.

Read this Migration Lead-times article for more details on Migration project lead-times, and the various factors that can materially impact your project schedule / lead-times.

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