WiscWeb - Migrating a non-WiscWeb site into WiscWeb
Requirements
The WiscWeb team will try importing the content from your site only if it meets these conditions:
- Your site must be using a recent version of WordPress.
- Note: We cannot migrate non-WordPress websites. For these, you will need to build from scratch.
- Your site must be using a recent version of UW Theme Classic or UW Theme 2.0.
- You must pare back your Media Library files as much as possible before you export your site.
- To the best of your ability, delete the items you think you don’t need.
- The fewer media items that exist, the better chance of success with the import.
Considerations
There are a few considerations to weigh before requesting a migration of your non-WiscWeb site into WiscWeb:
Content may not migrate over correctly
There’s a chance that the import will not work for some or all of your content. This can happen for a number of reasons:
- You might be using an out of date version of WordPress or the UW Theme.
- You might have custom features that break during migration.
- You might be using plugins that are not available in WiscWeb.
- Your Media Library of the existing site is too large, which causes the import may time out.
- Note: If this happens, we will not be able to import your media files.
If the migration doesn’t work, you will be required to manually rebuild the impacted content. In some cases, this may mean the entire site will need to be rebuilt.
Customizer and homepage content won’t carry over
In our migration, the Customizer details (header info, footer info, menus, etc), will not carry over and will need to be manually recreated.
We need to know if you’re using fac/staff or people listings
If you’re using fac/staff or people listings on your site and want that content to carry over, you’ll need to mention this in advance. Migration of this content requires that we enable the UW People plugin in your new WiscWeb project site before we migrate anything. Otherwise, you’ll have to manually rebuild each person.
Large Media Libraries can send a lot of traffic to your existing site in a short timeframe
The import process for Media Libraries will make requests to your existing site to download the media files.
If you have a large Media Library, this could mean thousands of requests to your current site. This is a large volume of traffic that could happen quickly, and it is possible it could impact performance of your current site depending on your site's hosting configuration. Because of this, we recommend that you delete as much unused media as possible from your site before requesting a migration.
Requesting a migration
If your site meets the requirements and you’re comfortable with the considerations, please use the Customer Support Form to request a migration into WiscWeb (choose the “Other” radio button).
Please include:
- A URL link to your current website.
- A link to a Box folder that includes your XML site export file.
- A note about whether or not your site uses fac/staff or people listing content.
Allow several days for us to process the request - these migrations require additional steps that need to be scheduled with our team.