Like many Tactis clients, your site is up and running on Drupal 7 or Drupal 8. But you’re probably starting to hear about Drupal 9. Released four years ago, Drupal 8 introduced a series of upgrades that fundamentally improved on the Drupal 7 platform. Drupal 9 was released in 2020, and both Drupal 7 (November 2022) and Drupal 8 (November 2021) will reach end of life in soon. While the 7 → 8 migration process has some complexity, the good news is that Drupal 9 is built directly from the Drupal 8 codebase. For Drupal site owners, this means that the move from D8 → D9 will be easy. How easy? In terms of relative complexity, it will be similar to an 8.1 → 8.2 migration code update.

The time to start planning is now.

2021 is finally here and the time to start planning for your migration is now. We recommend starting the Drupal 9 migration process in order to avoid confusion or a rushed migration process at the end of the year. Commonly used modules are now available, stable, and secure on Drupal 9 and importantly, nothing will be lost in the subsequent migration to Drupal 9.  

Tactis approach.

Our recommended approach to migration or redesign starts with a Tactis-executed series of site-scans including SEO, page speed tests, site crawl, and more, as well as a content audit. Thereafter, Tactis will conduct a results-based informal workshop with your team to begin the discussion around your digital strategy and business goals, as well as what has changed since your Drupal 7 or 8 site launched. As you consider a migration, we recommend you ask the following questions:

• Does your website still accurately reflect your brand?
• Is your content still relevant?
• What is your UX data telling you? Is there an opportunity for improvement?
• How is your site performing? Does it help meet your business and organizational goals?
• Is it time to consider how you can drive more traffic to your website?

It's D-day for a Drupal upgrade.

Don’t get caught behind the curve – the time to start planning for migration or redesign is now! Ready to talk Drupal strategy? Click here to schedule a no-cost evaluation. Or, for some additional, technical information on Drupal migrations, here and here are some thoughts from our friends at Acquia.

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Tactis is a full-service agency that delivers exceptional online and offline experiences for private and public-sector clients. Leveraging data, we operate at the intersection of experience design, creative, content strategy, technology, and marketing, which we call our Digital Convergence Model (DCM), and work in small, cross-functional teams with clients as our partners and users as our focus. This forms the foundation of our approach to turning digital challenges into endless possibilities.