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IndieCommunications: The State of the Drupal 7 Upgrade, Migration Timing, and Upgrade Conference Calls
Printer-friendly versionState of the Upgrade
The IndieCommerce migration from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 is a significant undertaking, one that affects every IndieCommerce store. The last six months have been devoted to planning both the strategy and logistics for executing the move. Issue #7 of IndieCommunication, sent to stores on Monday, presented an update on what’s going on now:
- The IndieCommerce development team is working on the nuts and bolts of the new installation to ensure that critical custom modules — for example, the shopping cart — transition properly to the new environment;
- Technology Manager Matt Supko is revamping the IndieCommerce book data processing;
- IndieCommerce’s Valerie Federici and Scott Nafz are testing and documenting feature changes, as well as providing regular customer service; and
- The IndieCommerce development team is meeting three times weekly with project consultant Lullabot to strategize, troubleshoot, and analyze progress. The work with Lullabot — one of the top-rated Drupal development companies in the country — began in February and will continue through May. The collaboration both expedites the process and helps uncover the more nuanced challenges.
Migration Timing: What to Expect
It is anticipated that migrations, i.e. copying, upgrading, and moving site files, will begin this summer, starting with sites that are less complex in terms of content and features, and ending with sites that incorporate the widest array of content (features, views, attributes, and other custom website elements).
By migrating sites from the less complex to the more complex, IndieCommerce staff will be able to build on the experience of working with the most widely used features, thereby creating less disruption and troubleshooting of any widespread bugs earlier on.
The timing will work essentially like this:
Step 1 (May): ABA will assign each IndieCommerce site to a group, numbered 1 to 4, with Group 1 being the least complex (as described above) and Group 4 being the most complex. Stores will receive an e-mail containing their group assignment.
Step 2 (tentatively June through September): Beginning with Group 1, ABA will copy, upgrade, and move any existing site files and schedule training webinars by group. As an example only, Group 1 stores will go through Step 2 in June and Group 4 stores will go through Step 2 in September.
NOTE: Stores will have time to work with both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 files.
All stores will have a chance to acclimate to the new Drupal 7 environment before going live.
The work will be invisible to the customer; a store’s current site will continue to function exactly as it does now. On the store end, there will be a separate environment for accessing the new Drupal 7 site. Store staff may continue to add customizations to a Drupal 6 site, bearing in mind that any such work done after the site has been migrated will need to be repeated for the Drupal 7 site.
Step 3: Following completion of the training webinars, store personnel will notify ABA when they are ready to go live. Stores will be placed in a queue with other stores in its group. There is no obligation to go live by a certain date. Stores may delay their go-live date until they are ready, including waiting until 2015, after the holiday season.
NOTE: ABA will support both Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 throughout 2015 in order to accommodate go-live requests. A site will go live only when the store is ready. Drupal 6 is far from becoming obsolete; however, any customizations to a Drupal 6 site following migration will need to be repeated for the Drupal 7 site.
The Drupal 7 training webinars will cover a range of topics, including changes to basic daily procedures, introductions to new features, and a review of commonly used functions. There will also be instruction on content editing and order processing for users wanting more in-depth instruction. Documentation will be prepared for all topics and will be made available on BookWeb.org in the coming months.
IndieCommerce Upgrade Conference Calls
To provide members with another way to learn the latest news about the platform upgrade, in addition to e-mail blasts and newsletters ABA will be holding a regular series of conference calls hosted by Technology Director Neil Strandberg. These calls will inform store owners, managers, and website support staff about progress on the platform upgrade and will be an opportunity to both discuss "next steps" for stores and address questions.
Strandberg will host a 30-minute call every Tuesday and Thursday for four weeks, beginning April 22. After a month, the format will be assessed and the schedule of calls will be adjusted accordingly.
While there may not be much "new" news from one week to the next, store staff may join as many calls as they like. Key points will also be covered via e-mail, and updates will be posted on d7.indiecommerce.com.
To facilitate the calls’ Q&A period, booksellers may submit questions in advance or during the call. Full details and a sign-up form are available here.
Get a Head Start: Tidy Up Your Site
Store staff is encouraged to review the current site with an eye toward removing unused or old content. Eliminating excess content may move a store into an earlier migration group and will ease the transition for all concerned.
The review should look at:
- Admin users, removing access for old employees
- Unused pages
- Images that are no longer relevant
- Old or disabled blocks
- Inactive menus
- Views that are not in use
If the site has a custom theme and multiple layouts in the directory, the store should notify IndieCommerce staff as to which themes can be deleted.
IndieCommerce at BEA
BookExpo America (BEA) is fast approaching, and ABA is strongly encouraging stores to send those employees who are most involved with their IndieCommerce site.
To expand in-person IndieCommerce education at BEA, in addition to one-on-one appointments, ABA has added several upgrade Q&A sessions and a variety of upgrade mini-sessions in the ABA Indie Bookseller Lounge.
Details about ABA’s programming at the trade show can be found on BookWeb’s BEA mini-site. Programming specific to IndieCommerce will be announced in the coming weeks.
As always, questions regarding the IndieCommerce upgrade should be directed to [email protected] or (800) 637-0037, ext. 2.
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