Many of you have now been trained on or at least "shown" Site Builder 3. It's magical, yes? Like a break-dancing unicorn, a king-size bed made of donuts, an Apple iPad that's actually useful.
Site Builder 3 is already in wide use with new sites being added daily. Since we've had no migration utility to move Site Builder 2 sites into the new system, we've encouraged users to recreate smaller sites when possible.
We've done this not only because the migration utility remains MIA, but also because sites *should* be remade every couple of years. Refreshing the content and examining the sites weaknesses usually brings great improvements to usability and the organization of content.
Now that I've got that out of the way, let's talk about our current plan for migration of sites from the old system.
During our trainings, we've discussed how migration will work, suggesting that you will find a "migrate now" box popping up in Site Builder 2 at some point in the near future. After careful analysis that lasted the length of my morning shower, I realized this was not the best way to handle it.
We've already admitted that importation will not be perfect. Site Builder 3 is vastly different than 2, and there is no possible way to match up the content from one system to the other. Moreover, sites would be migrated and instantly live without any time to make sure the migration was truly successful.
We've decided instead to create an "importation" routine that will copy content out of a Site Builder 2 site and put it into a new Site Builder 3 site. The Site Builder 2 site will continue to exist normally until you are ready to launch the Site Builder 3 site!
That's all fine and dandy, but what makes this plan even sweeter is that you will be able to import content from ANY OF YOUR SITES, at any time, into one site. You will be able to consolidate sites and copy sites without harming the original!
I've already completed the file importation portion of the utility and am about 75% done with the page portion. After that, I'll tackle newsletters and calendar events.
While this new importation plan is more awesome than the last, it does come with some caveats. First, we will not be importing ANY navigation structure. You will need to recreate it once you've imported your content. Additionally, calendar sharing, event reminders and a few other items will not be imported. They will remain with the original site.
If you have any questions about importation, feel free to contact me. We expect to have the importation routine available later this month.