Metalogix for Vignette Collaboration to SharePoint Migration

Some time ago I one of my projects involved migration from the Vignette Collaboration platform to SharePoint 2010. Vignette Collab was no longer going to be supported by the vendor and my client wanted to move to a new platform. They were already using SharePoint elsewhere, so SharePoint was chosen as the destination platform. The goal was to keep the migration simple, move content over “as is”, and use existing tools whenever possible. At the time that I was working on this, I couldn’t find a lot of information on this particular migration, so I thought to document my experience.  If you have a better solution or questions, please let me know.
To the best of my knowledge there is no tool that can directly copy Vignette Collab sites to SharePoint, so if you prefer to automate the process at all, you will have to first find or create a tool to get data out of vignette and then either create your own SharePoint importer tool or transform the migrated  data into a format consumable by an existing tool. We used Metalogix Migration Manager because it was the most flexible in terms of input and was able to reasonably re-create site structure.

Getting data out of Vignette

1. DIY: either using the Vignette API java or by writing scripts against the Vignette content DB.

   PROs	CONs
   You can shape the output any way you like	Error-prone
   If you’re already familiar with the DB schema or the API, this might be the way to go.	A lot of work if you’re not familiar with API/DB schema; even more work if the platform was customized by someone else

2. Server Tools: Vignette provides an administrative interface and command-line tool that exports data in XML format

   PROs	CONs
   If you have a contract with  OpenText for Vignette, they will help you.	This export is very flaky and will fail if your files are too large or in some cases if you have customized portlets… there’s a number of scenarios where this can fail.
   Export comes in XML format, making it relatively easy to parse	If you have a large site, the export process will run out of memory.

Getting data into SharePoint

The IT Leader's Guide to Multicloud Readiness

This guide provides practical key insights and important factors to consider to make informed decisions in your multicloud journey.

Download the Guide

You can custom-script re-creating the site structure and content in SharePoint, or use a tool. I used Metalogix and to the best of my knowledge that’s the only one that will save any time with a Vignette Collab export. (Do you know of another tool, or a better tool? please let me know!)

1. DIY: write a custom script that will create site structure and SharePoint pages out of your exported format. If you have a very complex site or you don’t want to map the site structure directly, this may be the best way to go.

2. Metalogix: Convert whatever export you produced into a CSV file that is compatible with Metalogix and then use Metalogix to import to SharePoint.

The main advantage of Metalogix, from my point of view is that it’s capable of creating the site structure for you and building out all the pages. It has a lot of options in terms of mapping your page content and other content types built-in, including managed metadata (although that one is a little tricky, so I’m going to cover managed metadata in a separate post).