Page 144 - PAM - PROOF

V 1.1 February 2024

Setting expectations
Regardless of whether you proceed with the migration using your Site Builder
data or decide to go for a Starter site you have a fair amount of work to do in
order to get your new u3a SiteWorks site to where you want it to be before going
live.

Migrating using the migration tool
The migration tool does an amazing job at bringing over our existing text and
media from our Site Builder sites. It is faster than copying-and-pasting and a lot
faster than re-keying but although text might look OK in site view it is Classic
WordPress underneath. As you know SiteWorks has chosen to use Gutenberg
WordPress which is block-based.
This means that all text and graphics need to be converted into blocks. That is
easy and is just one-click on each page. The text is converted to paragraph
blocks and the graphics become gallery images. Any links are simply links in
various parts of the page and might not be where you want them to be. The
challenge and the bit that takes the time is formatting each page.

It's easy to delete paragraphs, pages, and media that you no longer want to use
on your new site while retaining all the parts you do want to keep.

Site redirection can be set up on a page-by-page basis. As discussed above
you can change page content but need to retain original pages for this to be
effective.

Migrating using a Starter site
If you opt for a Starter site then you will effectively get an empty shell with some
basic blank pages and navigation buttons. You will need to upload all media and
add the required identifying data to the items. You will need to create and
format your content for every page.

You can copy and paste text from your Site Builder site into your chosen block
style to save rekeying but you will still have to format it. You will have to create
links to all external sites and any documents that are required. If you have a list
of Contacts, Venues, Groups and Events already then you can use the u3a
Import/Export option to import these into your new site ready for checking and
use.

As you are starting over with a Starter site you are not migrating any Site Builder
pages. You can still set up a redirection from Site Builder to SiteWorks but all
Site Builder pages will redirect to your new Home page only.

Getting ahead of the game
Regardless of which option you choose to proceed with you can complete a lot
of preparation in advance to save you time when you start work on your server-
hosted site. If there is text that you want to add or change then you can create
this in advance ready to copy-and-paste at the time. You can collect any media

Workbook for Web Managers Migrating to u3a SiteWorks Page 144