Ask an Expert will be transitioning from a custom application built on a Ruby on Rails platform (the legacy system) to a modified osTicket open source platform. This is a detailed summary of the steps which will be taken to ensure a successful transition.
Phase 0 (Completed)
July
- Various communication channels to let experts know Phase 1 is coming
- Create a transition help site
- Display a banner on ask.extension.org to inform experts
- Call for groups who want to pilot the transition
- Tell experts they might start seeing assignments from a new system soon
Phase 1 (Completed)
August 15 to October
- Onboard amenable groups to work in osTicket (concurrently with Ask an Expert)
- Work directly with groups to collect feedback
- Add additional groups to test scaling
- Send communications to current experts. Salient points:
- The Ask an Expert replacement system is live
- It’s a phased transition
- Select groups are piloting it via widget submissions
- All widget questions will be transitioned in Phase 2.
- Experts can test log-ins now and might start to get questions in Phase 2.
- All questions will move to the new system in Phase 3.
- Question submission widgets should be updated to the new code ideally by Phase 2, and required by Phase 4 (or widgets will 404)
Phase 2 (Completed)
November 9
- Intercept ALL widget traffic for the legacy system and forward to osTicket
- Modify Rails code to display a message explaining the transition and display a link to the corresponding osTicket group question submission form.
Phase 3 (Completed)
February 1
- All question submissions will switch to Ask Extension
Phase 4 (Completed)
February 15
- Rails redirects ALL public traffic to osTicket
- Organic search (SEO) conveys to new domain
Phase 5 (Completed)
May 3
- Shut down Rails app
- All ask.extension.org requests are htaccess redirected to osTicket.
- Any direct (i.e. bookmarked) specific URI request will go to the osTicket homepage
- Organic searches (SEO) should work seamlessly because of Phase 4
Phase 6
To be determined
- Change transition domain to ask.extension.org.
- Set up 301 redirects on transition domain
Phase 7
To be determined
- Shut down transition domain (or keep running indefinitely if not onerous)
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