Update on DU's web overhaul project for December 2020
Now, 12 months after the first monthly web update, with a leaner internal team, development partner Rehab Creative and creative agency Fastspot that will join the team soon, the Division of Marketing & Communications (MarComm) has doubled down on efforts to complete the migration of DU’s web ecosystem to Drupal in a timely manner. Since the project began in earnest, we have:
- Launched 55 websites and more than 9,462 webpages since September 2018, including the COVID-19 site, which has been revamped twice
- Migrated nearly all academic units (except MCE, DCB, Libraries and University College) to Drupal
- Identified four standalone websites (MCE, DCB, Internationalization and Student Affairs and Inclusive Excellence) and over 115 inline sites to be migrated
- Completed a backlog of 50 high priority bug fixes to ensure proper web functioning
- Finalized a contract to ensure 24/7 web security updates is in place
- Retired and redirected six sites this year
- Finalizing the upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9
- Finalized a parallel path plan, through internally- or externally-led processes, to migrate all remaining OmniUpdate (OU) sites into Drupal 9
- Gained budget approval to ramp up migration of OU-hosted websites into our Drupal 9-hosted environment
- Identified a Web Governance Group, co-chaired by MarComm and IT, to convene in January to help guide our efforts
We are making significant progress on the preparation for several web migrations and will meet with 16 units before the winter break to begin that process and will continue to meet with units in the early weeks of January.
The migration of the University’s web ecosystem into Drupal 9 is happening alongside our work to revamp our reputation strategy and we incorporate this new insight into our efforts to increase DU’s overall awareness.