Multi-Year, Cross-Functional CMS Collaboration Successful Transition
Jun 3, 2021The transition of university websites from the legacy content management system (CMS), SharePoint 2010, to Sitefinity as the university’s new CMS began in June 2016. Three sites launched in 2017 – including CU Denver University Communications, Office of Information Technology and the CMS Resource Site @Web – to demonstrate the new CMS and begin work on the massive project to transition all schools and departments. Today, more than 233 school, college and department university sites have transitioned from SharePoint to Sitefinity.
Developing a comprehensive web strategy that supports the university’s overall digital content plan takes a lot of planning and strategizing, including with campus leadership, communication teams, web professionals, and other university partners. Collaborators through these last few years have continued to provide input into strategies and solutions for making the most effective use of our website by focusing on innovation and user experience.
Jozianne Mestas, manager of Web Services, summarized a few of the accomplishments of this large group of collaborators whose “partnerships and collaboration were key to the successful completion of this project” which included:
- Building and managing a single site website to a multisite architecture
- Created the new CU Anschutz domain www.cuanschutz.edu
- Converted the interim CU Denver domain www1 to www.ucdenver.edu
- Increase of launch capacity from three original sites in 2017 to more than 146 sites in 2020 – a more than 200% growth between 2019 to 2020
- Campus highlights also included:
- The new CU Denver Student Journey Web Experience – a ten-month effort to redesign the student journey in collaboration with CU Denver University Communications, Student Success, Digital Strategies, the Office of International Affairs and OIT’s Web Services, Web Development & Ops, and Planning, Strategy and Analysis teams
- CU Anschutz School of Medicine transition of nearly 100 websites into Sitefinity and the Colorado School of Public Health’s move into a new, unique theme in Sitefinity that supports a tri-institutional effort with Colorado State University and University of Northern Colorado
For a full look at the transition process and links to each of the website launches, visit the Transition Progress webpage on the @web site.