Emory Drupal Rollout

Emory Communications and Marketing (C&M) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) are leading a major initiative to roll out Drupal as the primary content management system (CMS) for Emory University websites. This transition will modernize our web presence while maintaining flexibility for Emory’s schools and units.

Next Steps

The Drupal project team is currently developing the CMS. Fill out this interest form to let us know when you plan to move to Drupal. 

What You Need to Do

All schools, divisions, and departments that currently have a website should plan to move into the new CMS, as all new websites will be created in Drupal. Please consider the following questions as you prepare to migrate or create your website.

You are not required to move to Drupal immediately, but it is highly recommended that you begin making plans now. Access to Cascade will continue for now, but in-house development support will no longer be available. Unsupported sites remaining in Cascade long-term may face security risks.

Sites can take varying amounts of time to migrate. It depends on your site’s size, whether you’ll need support, your content strategy, and other factors. Following are typical steps you’ll need to take to migrate or create a basic site of 50 or fewer pages.

  • Discovery: Retrieve your site map and visual assets or plan your site’s information architecture (IA) 
  • Kickoff: Define your design and/or development needs 
  • Content: Gather/write/edit content before migration and freeze existing site content 
  • Training: Attend a Zoom session on Drupal basics (1–2 hours)
  • Design: Create internal mockups, make revisions, and seek approvals (20–30 business days)
  • Development: Build and migrate pages (35–50 business days)
  • Quality Assurance (QA): Set aside time for proofing, functionality, and accessibility testing (10–20 business days)
  • Launch: Final signoff and go live (1–2 business days)

Coordinate your plan

  • Decide which sites you wish to migrate and in what order.
  • Determine who in your department or unit will have primary responsibility for the migration project.
  • Communicate plans with your leadership.

Audit your existing site

Decide what content you plan to keep, update, or delete. Complete instructions on how to conduct a content audit can be found on the Web Content Audits documentation page.

Clean up your website’s content

  • Use web analytics to identify content that receives little or no traffic and consider eliminating it.
  • Delete outdated or duplicative materials, especially PDFs.
  • Update content on all pages as needed.
  • Determine whether you are responsible for any sites that are no longer needed and can be sunset.
  • Create a plan for archiving deleted content.
  • Plan redirects by building a spreadsheet of removed pages with clear instructions on where the old URLs should redirect.

It’s important to decide upfront whether you can create or migrate internally or you need outside help. You should consider the following:

  • Determine whether you need a completely new site, a full redesign to replace an existing site, or a straight migration of an existing site with few structural or content changes.
  • Do you have team members to build pages and edit content? 
  • How much time can you or someone on your team devote to page building and content editing?

As you begin the planning for your website, please know that C&M and OIT will provide training materials and consultation throughout the process.

The earlier you start, the better prepared you will be. 

The cost to migrate can vary widely, so begin analyzing your situation as soon as you can. The following considerations should drive budget planning: 

  • Decide if you need an external vendor. 
  • Vendor quotes largely depend on page count, so removing outdated content saves money. Special features and functionality often add cost. 
  • Quotes will be based on your requirements. Do you need help with strategy, audit, writing, photography, etc.? 
  • You may need to budget across multiple fiscal years, depending on your start date. 
  • Don’t forget to plan and budget for ongoing maintenance after launch. 
With training, provisioning, and the design system, you may be able to migrate and build your site without additional help or cost.

Indicate Your Interest

Let us know you are ready to get started with Drupal.

Fill Out Form