Sitecore Migration to Umbraco Improves Content Management Efficiency

A large public university with a complex digital ecosystem recognized the need to modernize its approach to managing content across its web properties. Its existing Sitecore platform supported a wide range of college-level websites, each maintained independently by distributed content authors. Over time, this model created increasing complexity in how content was structured, maintained, and scaled across the organization. 

The university’s web presence served as a critical source of information for students, faculty, and prospective applicants. Each college maintained its own section, contributing program details, faculty and staff directories, and other institutional content. As the volume of content grew, ensuring consistency and usability across these distributed inputs became more challenging. 

The legacy Sitecore platform compounded these challenges. Authors experienced slow performance and a difficult editing interface, which introduced friction into day-to-day content management. At the same time, the organization faced ongoing licensing costs and a platform that offered limited flexibility in evolving how content was structured and managed. 

Internally, the university recognized an opportunity to rethink its content architecture. Rather than simply maintaining the existing system, the team sought to migrate to a modern platform that would allow content to be organized more consistently, managed more efficiently, and scaled more effectively over time. With approximately 2,000 pages of content to transition and a firm deadline tied to the expiration of its Sitecore license, the university engaged Emergent Software to help guide the migration and establish a stronger foundation for managing content as structured, reusable data. 

Emergent Software partnered closely with the university’s internal development team to support the migration from Sitecore to Umbraco, with a focus on structuring content in a way that would improve consistency, scalability, and long-term maintainability. Rather than treating the migration as a simple lift-and-shift, the engagement centered on transforming how content was organized within the platform. 

The work began with defining a strategy for extracting content from the legacy Sitecore environment and mapping it into Umbraco’s architecture. Because the new platform relied on updated templates and modular components, each piece of content needed to be evaluated and aligned to a more standardized structure. This process required careful mapping of existing content fields to new templates, ensuring that content could be reused and managed consistently across the site. 

A central component of the engagement involved migrating approximately 2,000 pages of content across multiple sections of the university’s web presence. Each section reflected different authoring patterns and structures, which required iterative refinement to align with the new content model. Emergent worked alongside the client’s team to validate mappings, adjust templates, and improve the overall organization of content within the system. 

The engagement was highly collaborative, with Emergent integrated into the client’s development process. By participating in daily stand-ups and maintaining visibility into broader project decisions, the team was able to adapt quickly as requirements evolved. This collaboration ensured that content structure decisions aligned with both immediate migration needs and longer-term scalability goals. 

In addition to content migration, Emergent provided targeted development support, including a faculty integration that connected the website to internal systems used to manage staff information. This integration reinforced the role of the CMS as a structured repository for institutional data, enabling more consistent representation of faculty information across the site. 

Throughout the engagement, Emergent emphasized enablement and alignment with the client’s internal capabilities. By working within the client’s existing development framework and providing guidance on content structure and mapping strategies, Emergent helped establish patterns the team could continue to apply as the platform evolved.

The migration to Umbraco was completed within the required timeline, allowing the university to retire its Sitecore platform before licensing deadlines. The transition was executed without major issues, providing a stable and reliable foundation for ongoing content management operations. 

One of the most significant outcomes was the transition to a more structured and consistent content model. Content that had previously been organized in disparate ways across the Sitecore environment was transformed into a standardized format, improving how information is managed and maintained across the organization. This shift enables easier reuse of content and reduces variability across college-level sites. 

The improved structure also enhanced the authoring experience. With a faster, more intuitive interface and clearer alignment between content and templates, authors can now create and manage content more efficiently. This supports the university’s distributed authoring model while reducing the operational friction previously associated with content updates. 

The migration also minimized disruption to day-to-day operations. By reducing content freeze time during the transition, the team ensured that authors could continue managing updates with minimal interruption. This approach helped maintain continuity across the university’s digital presence throughout the migration process. 

From a financial perspective, the move away from Sitecore eliminated licensing costs and introduced a more sustainable cost structure. Beyond immediate cost considerations, the organization now operates on a platform that is more adaptable to evolving needs. 

Most importantly, the university now has a more scalable foundation for managing content as structured data. With standardized templates, improved organization, and a more flexible platform, the institution is better positioned to support future initiatives that depend on consistent, well-managed content across the organization.