To sign up for our daily email newsletter, CLICK HERE
No matter how big or small, every company faces the need to migrate to another platform or environment at some point. With technologies developing so fast, there’s always a better choice of tool or platform for your business. If you need to move your online store from Magento 1 to Magento 2, don’t waste any more of your time and go for professional Magento migration services.
In this article, we’ll introduce you to the main milestones of Magento migration that every company encounters during the process. You will learn about what you need to do to make your Magento 2 store a success right from the start, and don’t stretch the migration process more than it needs to take.
Plan your migration
It takes up to half a year to migrate to Magento, depending on your project size, amount of data, etc. In order to make the process as smooth and fast as possible, you need to create a detailed and in-depth migration plan to ensure everyone involved is on the same page throughout the whole course of migration.
Creating a migration plan usually involves gathering and analyzing data, setting project specifications, prioritizing databases and extensions, etc. At this step, you need to go over every detail that will be utilized in the migration process and take it into account.
Work on testing environment
Migration takes time, and you don’t want to stop the functioning of your store for such a long time. That’s why it’s better to choose an allocated server to take every step of the migration process there. Before writing the code, ensure testing and development environments are ready for use.
You can make sure that the project is ready for implementation by installing the default Magento 2 platform, such as Open Source, and checking for bugs or errors.
Arrange your extensions
This is one of the key parts of the migration process. Every project has a unique set of extensions and add-ons that cover its needs and requirements. However, you can simply move all the extensions from Magento 1 to Magento 2 because most of them are not compatible.
Firstly, you need to check the Extensions Marketplace and see whether there is a needed extension developed for Magento 2. If not, you have two options. You can look for extensions with similar functionality that will cover all your needs. Or you can ask the team that arranges your migration to develop a custom extension to match your needs.
Additionally, you have to check your third-party integrations that cover such functionality as order management or customer relationship management to ensure that they will continue to work smoothly after the migration.
Perform data migration
Magento data migration is another milestone of your migration journey. At this stage, such data as products and categories, customers and orders, settings, and configurations will be moved to another environment.
In order to make sure that this step goes smoothly, you’ll restore to the Data Migration Tool. With this technology, the majority of the data will be migrated to the new environment without a hustle.
Set up a proper Magento 2 design
Since Magento 1 and Magento 2 don’t have compatible frontend themes, you won’t be able to migrate your Magento 1 theme to the new store. You can manage this step in two ways: either buy a Magento 2 template that fits your store’s style or develop a custom theme to match your requirements.
If you have strict deadlines, pre-made templates are a good option because they will cover most of your needs, allowing you to build a store where the visual aspect corresponds with the main concept. However, if you have a little bit more time and resources, a custom theme will allow creating all of the visual elements and features from scratch, making your store unique and specific.
Test the design and synch your databases
The next necessary step is to configure the hosting server according to the requirements of the new Magento 2 environment. You can proceed to this process after taking care of the design, completing all the necessary changes to the extension list, etc.
After configuring the hosting server, you’ll need to finalize the databases to ensure that no orders or changes to the customers’ profiles were forgotten or missed.
Go live
And the last stage, the moment that all of those preparations were for, going live. If you did your preparations and procedures right and without mistakes, it wouldn’t take much time or effort to go live. The transition will be smooth, and your Magento 2 store will start operating soon.
If there were some mistakes made during the migration process, it would result in bugs or glitches in the new store. It’s much easier to fix the mistakes in the early stages, so it’s better to test everything a couple of times so that when the time comes, you won’t be stressing over the fact that not all product pages are shown, or you can’t find the customers’ profiles.
Sum up
And that’s it! Migrating your store to Magento 2 can be tiresome and confusing in some parts. From creating an initial plan for migration to using the Data Migration tool to move the data, migration takes time, preparation, and planning.
It’s always better to turn to professionals with loads of experience to make sure that you’ll end up with a perfect Magento 2 store from the first time and won’t spend days or weeks fixing the glitches or bugs in the new store.
