Convert our 80+ TeamSite sites to LiveSite sites? Automatically?

The boss just asked me a simple question: Is there a way to take our 80+ existing TeamSite sites and ‘import’ them into LiveSite?

Is there a:

Automation Tool? (or do we make one?)

Documentation?

Forum thread?

Sticky note?

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Comments

Shazzer

Ahhh, your boss is looking for the famous "iwdomyjobforme" tool.

RichDiaz

Well, here's what I've found so far on IW...

TechArticle: 53622 (LiveSite)

Existing TeamSite Implementations:
If you have an existing TeamSite implementation, you have a few options to take advantage of LiveSite:

1) Utilize LiveSite for a new initiative, and build components from scratch.

2) Convert an existing web property to LiveSite, re-use TeamSite workflows and DCRs; create components for page layout and design.

3) Existing TeamSite implementation did extensive Presentation Template (PT) customization; PTs are leveraged to create components. Once the components are created in LiveSite, business users can then take advantage of the presentation layer which was previously only accessible to the IT professional.

wscott

The boss just asked me a simple question: Is there a way to take our 80+ existing TeamSite sites and ‘import’ them into LiveSite?

Nope. LiveSite constructs HTML from components, but taking an existing blob of HTML and decomposing it into components is not a problem that computers can solve. In fact it is often non-trivial for a human to solve because most production HTML is really convoluted.

That said, you could try any of these strategies:

1. HTML pages and LiveSite .pages should be able to coexist and link to one another fairly easily. There might be issues with the HTML pages losing the session and similar technical hurdles, but if those parts of the site are relatively static it shouldn't be a problem.

2. When creating a LiveSite component, there is a "Create from HTML" option. You can use this to quickly convert chunks of HTML from your existing pages into LiveSite components. However, you may find that the existing HTML doesn't fit neatly into components and that you need to do additional refactoring to make it work.

3. When using the "Create from HTML" option, I strongly recommend AGAINST trying to turn an entire page into one giant component. Smiley Wink

Instead, try using Templates to capture consistant site elements like header, footer, side-bar, etc.

4. If your existing HTML pages are made from DCRs using FormsPublisher templates, you could convert those templates (or parts of those templates) into LiveSite component XSL, and then have LiveSite components read the DCRs. This will allow you to re-use most of the data for the site.

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