Published
on
February 7, 2018
| 2,917 views
| 0 followers
members are following updates on this item.
Once your digital workplace's architecture and access are set up, the next step is often to migrate content over from any previous collaboration systems you've been using. It can feel like a daunting task for even a small community as you look over your SOPs, files, announcements, and who knows what else. Once you have it there, it'll hum and sing, but until then someone has to move it. Igloo provides several methods for simplifying that for you however, and today we'll go over several of those.
The first step in any migration is to make a lot of decisions. It's essential to index items from different services that are going to be moved into Igloo, as well as which Channels and content types they'll be moved into. Often, not everything has to come over at once, and it's worthwhile to migrate in phases. Bring over your most relevant policies and files first, then start working with historical data.
Migration is frequently the first test of the shape of your digital workplace, as you map your content from other services into specific locations. Does the way it's organized make sense to your members? Does it fit your workflows? Does it give you room to grow? Whether you're migrating a few hundred files or ten thousand wiki articles, these are questions to consider.
Once you've made your decisions, it's time to bring things over.
Files often come into Igloo from other services like Dropbox or Drive, or from network drives where people have been accessing them. Igloo makes it easy to import your file and folder structure with the Igloo Desktop Client, letting you drag and drop files directly into your digital workplace. Once the files are added, you can navigate through in the platform to add any labels, related links, or descriptions as necessary.
If you already have files in a cloud services like Sharepoint online or OneDrive for Business and want them to remain there for now, chat with your Project Manager about the Integration widget, which can offer visibility into those services right from your community, so you can show them on Pages alongside resources in your Igloo.
When you come over from another service, odds are good you have blog posts and wiki articles there that need migration. There are content creation APIs to help automate the process, but sometimes the system clients come from doesn't have built in hooks to export content. In cases like that, the migration becomes a manual process, but there are a few tricks to make it as easy as possible.
First, you can create content in Igloo through email. For articles that are text only, like SOPs or policies, this can make things fast. Copy your content out of the current service, place it in an email, and send it to the new channel in Igloo to push over your articles in as few clicks as possible. The subject line of the email will become the title, the body of the email goes in as the body of the item in Igloo, and any attached files will also come over as attachments to your article. If your articles have links, remember to edit them to re-link to items in your Igloo, or they could send your members somewhere irrelevant.
The second method is a little more technical, but works well for capturing image heavy items, like announcements or collages. Here's a step by step guide:
It seems lengthy when spelled out, but it essentially reduces the time for article migration to six clicks of your mouse. Make sure to download and copy any images, and add them to the appropriate spots in the article using the Replace option in the image editor as well, to ensure that the images are hosted in Igloo.
Migrating content takes time, but it's time well spent, especially when combining several of your old services into a single collaboration and knowledge management solution. Making sure that everything comes over gives your members one place to find everything they need.
If you have questions about migration, workflows, or best practices, you can leave a comment here, or ask a question in the Community area.