Stick to the Plan
If you’ve attended a wave launch session, you know this entire project tricky. As Run-DMC says, “it’s tricky, tricky, tricky.” Even in the best of circumstances, moving to a new website is tedious and cumbersome. The only thing that can make migration smoother is planning and sticking to the plan. That’s why we’re not seeking perfection; we’re seeking done.
We need your help to stick to the plan. Here are some status updates and reminders:
Timeline
- Wave 1 is not going according to plan but we still hope to launch on April 30, 2018. As we get closer to this date, the timeline feels extremely tight.
- Wave 2 migration was delayed two weeks but we still plan to launch in June 2018.
- Wave 3 preparation meetings are in-progress and the wave is on track.
- Wave 4 starts June 2018.
- Wave 5 timeline still hasn’t been demined.
Search
A product called Funnelback will power our new internal search function. We had a kick-off call and plan to have it ready by mid-April. The search won’t be fully optimized until all sites are migrated but we still expect it to work much better than the search we currently have.
Delete, Delete, Delete!
We still have thousands of images, PDF files and pages in our content management system that are not used anywhere. Although they aren’t linked, these files are still live on the web and can be found via search. Delete all old files or save them somewhere else if you need them.
Move Biographical Information
As previously announced, faculty and staff biographical information will be stored in a central database. There will no longer be bio pages on individual department or research group pages. All UND.edu sites will link directly to individual People Finder profiles instead of hosting their own bio pages.
Start moving your own biographical information now. You don’t have to wait for your wave.
Gather Images
Images on the current site will not migrate to the new site because all images will be different sizes. Our recommendation is to store the highest resolutions images you have and then resize once you decide where the images will be used.
The new site is very image heavy. If you need new photography, please allow several months advanced notice. Make your photos requests directly to the web person working with you on your wave.
