pitneybowes.com: a multinational, multilingual aem launch

pitneybowes.com:A Multinational Marketing Site Launch --- What Worked,

What Didn’t

[email protected]

Web Development Manager, Pitney Bowes

WEM, CMS, BBS Enthusiast

Hack of All Trades

@Xorandnotor (XOR – AND – NOT – OR)

[email protected]

Web Development Manager, Pitney Bowes

WEM, CMS, BBS Enthusiast

Hack of All Trades

@Xorandnotor (XOR – AND – NOT – OR)

Same sh

irt!

Purpose

1. Provide a look into our migration of a multilingual, multinational marketing site from a legacy CMS to AEM

2. Call out factors that contributed to our success

3. Share some lessons learned and “gotchas”

The Prologue

2012“We need to replace our CMS”

2013“Let’s use AEM”

2014 “Kick-off”

The Prologue

• No centralized content strategy

• No integrated translation process

• New template development requests measured in months

January 2014

• 100+ Content Authors

• 50+ Marketing Sites

• 48 Domains

• 38 Countries

• 15 Languages

The Epilogue

• All supported markets using centralized content strategy

• All supported languages driven through integrated translation

• New template development requests measured by sprint

Today (Nine months later)

• 25 Content Authors

• 18 Marketing Sites

• 1 Domain

Who has time for foreshadowing?

Dramatis PersonaeDigital

MarketingProgram Manager

Project Manager

UX/Visual Design

CMS Power Users

Content Authors

SEO

IT

Program Manager

Project Manager

AEM Architect

Front-End Developers

Java Developers

Migration Specialists

Business Stakeholders

Regional Marketing Heads

Line of Business Marketers

Demand Generation

Corporate Marketing

Misc. (Legal, HR)

Executive Sponsors - Adobe - Wipro - Online AEM Community

Act I: Defining the Project

• Requirements Workshops• Existing Pain Points• Long outstanding requests• Industry best practices• Content inventory• Ad-hoc content

• Project approach• Lack of content funding• “Lift and Shift” for Phase One• One mid-sized market as a guinea pig

Pre-Migration Effort• Content Clean Up

• Designs

• HTML/CSS

• Templates/Components

Frequent, Transparent Stakeholder Communication

• Governance and Processes• Content deployment• Translation

management

• AEM Training• Authors• Developers

Planned Migration ModelSitemap creation

Automated migration

System Integration Testing

User Acceptance Testing

Launch & Redirect

Act II: Australian Migration

Sitemap creation

Automated migration

SIT

UAT

Launch & Redirect


A Plan Down Under• Review of ad-hoc content was insufficient• Migrate or govern?

• Content clean up exercise was insufficient

• Sitemap exercise should have been driven by new URLs first

• Additional step for content review and curation prior to UAT

• Expose pre-launch site for UAT by a wider audience


Revised Migration ModelAd hoc analysis

Sitemap creation

Automated migration

SIT

Content Curation

Soft Launch

UAT

Launch & Redirect

Revised format

Blank node report

Exposes at final URL inside VPN

Act III: Good Migrations• Ad-hoc functionality is identified and dealt with early on

• Completed sitemaps provide• solid expectation of results• a clear inventory of required content• an invaluable resource for testing efforts

• Digital Marketing has ample opportunity to polish sites prior to UAT

• Entire company is enlisted into testing and feedback

• Final switchover is a single network redirect


What WorkedFrequent, transparent stakeholder communication

Close partnership among IT, Marketing, and Line of Business

Company-wide pre-release

Train the trainer

Purposeful sequencing of market releases


What Didn’t• Content clean up

• Unknown unknowns (Ad hoc content)

• Availability of in-region resources

• Launching the CMS before the content investment

What’s NextRevised Content Strategy

A move away from Lift and Shift and into our Phase TwoClay Tablet for integrated translations (in production)

Adobe Assets for Creative Services team (approved last Friday)

AEM as brand control and presentation layer for transactional systemsMy Account (in production)

Online Store

3rd Party Vendors

Customer Support

AEM v6.1


CQ & AEM(Last pun, I promise)

[email protected]@XorandnotorLinkedIn.com/in/StephenEvermore