I’m going to re-design and develop a new site for my client (they prefer wordpress as the new platform). They have got an existing big site with membership (with paypal), member portfolios and directories (with search) which are largely done manually in php associated with Silverstripe CMS.
I need some directions on how I best target this task with changing platforms from Silverstripe to WordPress.
1) They want to keep their membership, directories data and migrate it to wordpress without members have to re-enter it again manually, is this possible, how can this be achieved?
2) For their membership, portfolios and directories, is it best to re-use the code, or is it too different between those two platforms? Or shall I search for some plugins to best match it and then manually add extra php code to match the existing site?
Which would be a better approach?
3) I’ve found some migrating companies who do migrations from Silverstripe to WordPress with a cost, is the end product as logical as the original site? Or is it better to build it yourself in wordpress?
Anyone had experience of changing platforms, any suggestions are appreciated.
Thank you.
EDIT:
Sorry I’ve been away, thank you so much for your answers, Colyba, Cam and Zauberfisch, it is hard to choose one to be the answer. A little update, my client is more towards staying with Silverstripe after I used some of your knowledge, thank you.
Now I just found out they have got an offline Miscrosot Access to keep the membership details as well, my first thought was to just use the website and ditch MS Access, but their admin person has been using this MS Access for a long time even before the site was built, so I am just wondering is there anyway to synchronise both data?
I know the SS website membership database and MS Access membership database structures are set up differently, so I am just wondering is there any way to automatically update the offline MS Access membership when the SS website membership database is updated online? so they don’t have to double add member details onto the offline MS Access. Any security issues? See question here, any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you very much!
I think what it comes down to is asking the client what the vision of the future or business direction is, also who will be responsible for maintaining the code base once the work is done?
I find WP has a lot of updates that need regular attention otherwise it is common to get hacked. If the client is aware of this and actions those that is good. Also does the business not have any intention of building further custom functionality other than what they currently offer to customers? if not, and the functionally is mostly commodity based stuff then sometimes WP can be the right tool for the job (even though you could do it in SilverStripe too).
However… if you are already on SilverStripe (perhaps an older 2.4 version) you could look at upgrading them to version 3 (assuming you are on 2.4) which has a much more user friendly admin interface (dare I say it more WordPress-ish in layout) This might be more familiar to your client. If you do go this direction spend some time running your client through how to use the CMS as part of the project. I have found that helped me sell the benefits of SilverStripe when I was working as a freelancer.
SilverStripe will give you a great set of tools for future flexibility of the website (and the business). I usually feel pretty confident that when the business, say in a years time, asks for a very custom new feature to make their customers happy. I know that it can be easily built using SilverStripe’s framework and made simple for CMS users to interact with that data through SilverStripe’s extendable CMS interface. Also, of consideration is the licensing (we use BSD at SilverStripe), if strategically important and valuable code related intellectual property is being created, BSD allows retention of this while leveraging the SilverStripe platform. See http://www.silverstripe.org/bsd-license
So you can take more than just a technical approach in your discussions with a client.
There was this article which I quite liked http://www.chromatix.com.au/blog/wordpress-vs-silverstripe/ too.
Again, you will want to have a discussion with your client about the business plans going forward to ensure something gets put in place that can cater to those future needs. Sometimes if clients are not well educated about strategically thinking about their site it can lead to plugin bloat (just bolting on any shiny functionality without considering why) and ultimately their WP site falling over in the long term.
People are creatures of habit, they like to stick with what they know and what might have worked before… we just need to be careful not to extrapolate what used to work versus what will give you the flexibility to change in the future given we are in a very dynamic and chaotic business environment 🙂 And particularly given that many IT systems being off the shelf commodities don’t give a business any sustained competitive advantage (unique functionality and the capability to build very custom things to align with customer needs however is where business can better compete). If you and your competitor are both on WP you can both simply click a button and get the same features… how are you adding value for your customers if this is the case?
After all, value from information systems is realised through business objectives and making customers happy, and competing in business is about having something unique that others don’t.
Hope my ramble helps in your decisions 🙂 Granted I may be perceived as having a bias (after all I am the SilverStripe ‘Community Awesomeness Manager’ for full disclosure). When I was a freelancer, I have carried out projects in both WP and SS over the years, selecting the right tool for the job while considering the longer term needs of your clients is key. Does your client need a frozen microwave dinner or are they wanting to serve up some fresh home cooked goodness? Both can achieve the objective of being feed 😉
I fully agree with what colymba said in the comments.
what ever the reason may be, it is a bad idea to switch to WordPress with your type of content.
WordPress is a blog system, and its great at it, but doing custom stuff can quickly become rather painful.
Also, as cam pointed out, SilverStripe 3.x has great improvements over SilverStripe 2.x, so if you are still on 2.x, you should consider an update to SilverStripe 3 as alternative to WordPress (updating to SilverStripe also involves some work, as there have been many changes to how SilverStripe works, but its a lot less than migrating to another System)
Even though I strongly discourage your plan of action, I will still attempt to answer your questions (however I have not used WordPress for a complex Site, so I can’t really speak to the internal workings of WordPress for this use case):
SilverStripe stores the passwords salted and hashed.
From what I can see WordPress does also salt and hash, but it looks slightly different, you might need to customize the WordPress password hasher to continue using the existing Passwords form SilverStripe.
All other Member data should be possible, just a matter of importing.
But it is for sure that you can’t simply export and import your data, the schema of SilverStripe differs quiet a lot from WordPress, so you probably have to write your own import/data migrator.
Again, the architecture and data schema of SilverStripe is quiet different from the one of WordPress, so I am pretty sure you would need to rewrite the major part of your application.
Migration companies usually provide basic migration of standard data (Pages, Files and Users without any special features). your site seems to have a lot of custom features, and thus I am not sure if a company that offers migration will be what you are looking for here.
Plugins … maybe you find one that does what you need. But the problem with WordPress plugins is that they usually do something, and if you want it slightly different, you are out of luck, so you might loose features that you previously had.
Also, a plugin (eg. for portfolio) does not solve your data migration problem.
overall, I would say its possible to do it.
However it will require advanced programming skills and a deeper understanding of how WordPress works internally.
So I recommend careful consideration before making a decision.