Upgrading Umbraco

(The loneliness of an Umbraco upgrader)

Thomas Morris
@mozzy16

Drink Um Bongo,

TALK Umbraco

http://www.umbongo.com/

The Task

Upgrade an existing site (v4) onto

the latest version of Umbraco (v7)

• Designs needs to stay the same.
• Content needs to stay the same.
• Code can change as much as required!

THE OPTIONS

• Do a completely new site
  • Need to import content
  • Need to rebuild doc types
  • Need to build site from scratch
• Upgrade the existing site
  • Can maintain content
  • Can maintain Umbraco structure
  • Still likely to rebuild elements

Why Upgrade?

The HQ team (and others within the community)

have been implementing and making lots of stuff.

• Complete redesign
• Works in mobile formats
• Better editing experience
• New service layer
• Better performance
• Greater support for latest technology
• Packages!
• etc.

NEW UI

EXAMPLE PACKAGES

What's the issue?

The tech world can change quite a lot in 

a relatively short space of time.

• Web forms
• XSLT
• .NET framework
• Umbraco
• Packages!

• MVC
• Razor
• .NET framework
• Umbraco
• Packages!

What's the issue?

Oh, and it's also likely to take some effort

and require a bit of money in terms of resources.

How to do it

For the most part a simple Nuget install

is all that is required. ;)

• Install-Package UmbracoCms (-Version 7.4.3)
• Overwrite files (take backups)
• Install screen -> continue
• Say hello to the new back-office

Note: your site / umbraco may still not work.

MIGRATION SCRIPTS

Since Umbraco 7.3, these will now run and

update your database accordingly

• Looks at umbracoMigration table
• Date back to FourOneZero
• Can even roll your own
• Easy deployments

Note: if you find issues, then report them and get them fixed!

STILL NO WORK

But what if that didn't work?! Here's just 

a few things that might not work out.

• Database issues (report to Umbraco)
• Incompatible data types
• Incompatible packages
• Missing files
• Incorrect configuration
• Code no longer valid

EXAMPLE DOC

THE Rebuild

Hate to break it to you, but some of that

old stuff just won't work anymore.

• Webforms -> MVC
• XSLT -> Razor
• Macros -> Partials
• New service layer
• Updated doc types (e.g. MNTP)
• Updated packages (e.g. Nested Content)

Inconsistent data

Not everything is stored the same way and

some data types won't be compatible

• Legacy MNTP to MNTP (issue)
  • XML to CSV
• uComponents: URL Picker to v7 URL Picker
  • XML to JSON
• We can convert this data

Note: Be careful when doing this and remove version history

Import tool

Content Migration

The rebuild might take a while, so you'll need to

upgrade again with the new code

• Export configuration data using uSync
• Get latest live database
• Point code to new backup and run installer
• Apply uSync for configuration data
• Apply any data conversions required
• Voila.