Upgrading from Drupal 7 to Maximize Impact

Since the announcement of Drupal 7's end of life, many teams have faced challenges; often struggling to secure stakeholder buy-in while managing other internal priorities. With the end of life set for January 2025, it’s mission-critical to upgrade or replatform. Delaying this decision not only prolongs existing frustrations with your current platform and content management but also exposes your site to significant security risks. The College of Staten Island’s Drupal 7 upgrade and post-launch optimizations is a shining example of how you can convince stakeholders of the importance and also prioritize optimizations that your teams are looking forward to in a new and robust environment. 

In our recent webinar, we discussed The College of Staten Island's (CSI) successful upgrade, and the planning that enabled a successful migration path. We first explore how the CSI team secured budget and stakeholder support through a pre-planning phase. Then we get into the details of how our incremental approach to the upgrade significantly improved content editor flexibility, addressed stakeholder concerns, prioritized ADA compliance and accessibility, and laid the groundwork for future optimization and planning.

Watch the full presentation below. Or read on for a high level overview.

What spurred CSI’s Drupal 7 upgrade?

The Drupal 7 end of life wasn’t the only motivator. CSI's initial push towards upgrading came from the inherent limitations and challenges posed by Drupal 7, including outdated code and cumbersome content management processes that hampered day-to-day operations. CSI sought to remedy these issues while also leveraging newer technological advancements by moving to Drupal 9. This shift was aimed at enhancing site security, performance, and usability.

Why did CSI stay with Drupal? How were they able to obtain a budget and get stakeholder buy-in? 

After looking into other CMS options, the CSI team found that Drupal provided a much more secure and robust enterprise CMS environment. The current staff had knowledge of Drupal and the Acquia hosting provider, so making a commitment to another CMS at this stage would be a larger investment that would require training and customizations to meet the needs of the CSI team. 

While they had many ambitions for the new platform, the CSI team stakeholders knew that they needed to stick to the goals of the project, and utilize their budget to hit their main priorities. This helped with stakeholder communications and aligning on the focus and what to expect from the upgrade effort. Some of the goals that the team addressed and pushed with their stakeholders included: 

Security Vulnerabilities: The platform would no longer receive security updates or patches, making the Drupal 7 website vulnerable to security threats and attacks.

Usability and Flexibility of the Platform: They were looking for an advancement towards modern theming, features and functionalities including an ability to build with a component based architecture to make it easier and faster to make changes.

ADA Compliance: Build ADA compliance into the base code of the website as much as possible to reduce risk of an inaccessible experience.

The team met with multiple stakeholder groups to gain support and advocacy for the upgrade and create a Web Steering Committee internally to provide support for stakeholder questions and create workflows for how teams could work together through this engagement. 

What problems did the Drupal 7 upgrade solve for CSI?

This project focused on improving many areas of concern for CSI, including:

• Improving administrative and user experience. We focused on streamlining the content management process to make it more intuitive and less time consuming for CSI’s staff. By reducing the complexity and number of styled templates, the new system simplified the website's architecture, thereby reducing unnecessary overhead and potential for errors.

• Reducing costs and staying within budget. The project was designed to be cost-effective, ensuring that the financial resources invested would yield long-term benefits, primarily through reduced maintenance costs and increased efficiency. 

• Accessibility compliance: The new Drupal 9 site adheres to ADA compliance standards, ensuring that it is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. This not only benefits the users but also aligns with legal and ethical standards for public institutions.

• Technological enhancements: Drupal 9 offers a more robust platform with better integration capabilities, particularly with Google Analytics, which allows for more effective site management and optimization strategies. The performance improvements have also been notable, with faster load times and smoother navigation, which enhance the user experience.

• Empowering CSI’s team: Our development team worked closely with CSI's internal staff throughout the process, empowering CSI personnel to manage and update their platform independently. This collaboration ensured that the site would be sustainable and adaptable to future needs without requiring constant external support.
• Planning for the future: With Drupal 10 on the horizon, the institution is well-prepared to adopt new features and improvements, ensuring that its digital infrastructure continues to meet the needs of its users and stays ahead of technological curves.

How did the team optimize the Drupal website post-launch?

The team prioritized the homepage and global navigation to enhance the user experience and meet stakeholder expectations. The Drupal upgrade provided a flexible framework that allowed them to focus on optimizing specific sections of the website and prioritize their efforts effectively. By overhauling the homepage and conducting navigation research for the global navigation, we collaboratively created a user-friendly web presence, making it easier for the website's diverse audiences to find the information they need.