Much Shelist

Much Shelist’s Time-Sensitive Migration to Drupal

Much Shelist is a full-service business law firm based in Chicago. Their website which resided on the RedDot content management system (CMS), faced a crisis: unless the technical team updated to the latest version of RedDot, the hosting provider would no longer support the website. And the clock was ticking.

But it wasn’t a simple fix. RedDot had gone through several version iterations since Much Shelist last updated the CMS. The way the software was configured, the technical team would have to update each missed version separately. (“It’s called technology debt,” explains Duo CTO Fred Salchi.) At any rate the process would have been time-consuming and cost-prohibitive.

Much Shelist began to search for a better option. But there wasn’t much time. And accepting the site going offline was a non-starter. Much Shelist needed a solution and needed one quick.

Content Migration

A mutual contact introduced representatives of the law firm to Duo Consulting. After being satisfied with technical considerations, Much Shelist agreed to run the new site on Drupal CMS, Duo’s specialty, and find a new hosting service. As a large law firm, Much Shelist hosts a large library of content on its website. Therefore, the switch to Drupal required a massive content migration from RedDot.

Increased Functionality

Although addressing the hosting crisis was top priority, Duo sought to discover if additional unmet needs could be satisfied as long as the new CMS was being configured. It was suspected that the advanced capabilities of the Drupal CMS would be able to accommodate these needs without significant effort.  At the kickoff meeting in August, 2011, Duo requested a wish list of new site features that might be desired. If time and budget permitted, Duo would incorporate as much as possible into the re-launch of the site.

Much Shelist produced a list of desires with three key site update requests:

• The ability to search news & publications
• A dynamic feed for news & publications to attorney bios
• Manageable relationships between attorneys and locations/practice areas

This added functionality would build greater efficiency for the website, both for content managers on the backend and site visitors using the search engine on the front-end. Building content relationships would automate certain functions of the site that currently had to be managed manually with RedDot.

Phased Implementation

Duo had only 45 days to accomplish the content migration. Rather than developing every item on the wish list in the short time period, Duo put in place the foundation and framework for each new feature over the course of the migration itself. The actual implementation would take place after the top priority was met.

Comprehensive Content Migration and New Features

Beyond a bit of design cleanup and implementation of dropdown menus, Duo performed a straight transfer of the old site’s content to the Drupal CMS. Working with Much Shelist’s RedDot developer, the team exported most of the data in XML files. Due to structural issues with some of the content, the Duo team performed some transformations on the content.

The migration also included switching over the mobile site, which the Duo team handled with few issues.

Much Shelist and Duo had the new site up and running in mid-October, 2011 just 52 working days after project kick-off and meeting the tight deadline. Once the site was launched on the new platform at the new host, the Duo team built the relationships Much Shelist requested in its wish list. The new search features included.

• Simple tags to help accurately identify news & publications and simplify search

• Prebuilt relationships to associate news & publications with specific attorneys, mobilizing a dynamic feed

• Simplicity in relating attorneys to practice areas and locations, as well as built-in features to input searchable nicknames and maiden names, even if they aren’t public information

An added benefit of the switch to Drupal was an easier-to-use backend system. Before the switch, non-technical personnel required the intervention of technical teams to code specific updates and add files to the directory. Now, the backend is much more user-friendly, no longer requiring technical teams to make updates to content.

Visit the Much Shelist website >>