Hello: 

First, there are a lot of us that have performed Evoq to DNN Platform migrations over the years.  Getting ahead of your renewal is key.  With 4 months left,  you don't have a lot of time left to select a vendor and/or plan the migration to avoid the renewal.  So, it's great that you're looking into this now.  I'd recommend following that link to find and interview the vendor(s) you think you may match up with.   (We're one of them, of course, but you should still go through the process to find the best fit for your organization.)  

You're correct that there are various options in the DNN ecosystem that can replace features in Evoq.  Structured content is one of them.  Most agencies in the ecosystem can do this for you as well.  An evaluation should be done to fully determine how many of the Evoq features you need to replace and then get on the path toward migrating off of Evoq.  

Outside of that, there are a ton of weird issues that occur during the migration process, but nothing that can't be resolved.  Those issues tend to be somewhat unique per website instance.  

Posted By Deleted User on 3/21/2024 12:57 PM

Hello everyone,

My company is looking to move away from paying for DNN Evoq version due to the lack of support and constantly slow to load Liquid Content editor.  From some research I've done, most of the Liquid Content functionality can be replaced with extension like 2sxc.  

Does anyone here have any experience or insight regarding the process of moving all of our Liquid Contents to a something like 2sxc and switching version from Evoq to Community?  What are the approximate process and timeframe that we should plan for to complete this process?  

Would we be better off creating a new installation and export our sites to it or is it manageable enough to just work with our existing installation?  Our site is hosted on Azure Webapps.

Anything we need to be aware of before we move to the community edition? Like features that we may lose beside Liquid Contents that I may not be aware of?

I believe our renewal is coming in 4 months and my manager is asking whether we should renew this for another year or if that's enough time to transition to community,

 

 

 

We have migrated quite a few Liquid Content implementations to 2sxc.  While it is a "rebuild from scratch" for the most part, you have much more flexibility and power within 2sxc as compared to Liquid Content.  You also have everything on-premise and don't have to rely on a cloud architecture that is outside of your control.  Let us know if we can help in any way.

 

I realize that this is an older thread, but I wanted to add in to it several key suggestions and points.

First, as Will mentions, a lot of us that have performed Evoq to DNN Platform migrations over the years. There have been times where we've done 4 or 5 Evoq migrations a month for a season and then now we're generally performing one or two every other month.

While there is not a simple button to press to "Uninstall Evoq" or "Revert to Community", there is a straight-forward process that we can go through to update a site from Evoq to DNN Community Edition. After that, we can perform both documentation for you that a site is no longer Evoq corporate, and can continue with DNN Community version upgrades to update it to the latest version of the platform.

Regarding the timing, it is 100% easier to perform a migration from Evoq to DNN Community edition when the Evoq license is still active. However, if it has expired, be aware that:
- The Evoq site with an expired license will still display all of it's content and functionality. A public user will see and use the website like normal with no banner, notification or nag message that the site is not licensed.
- However, an Administrator or Host (SuperUser) when logging in will see a message and will not be able to make edits or changes in the site. Pages will not enter edit mode and the updating or editing of the site after that point can only be done through the database vs the interface.
- And for our processes, a migration can continue after the license has expired, it just makes the first several steps harder until we reach a certain point in the process.

Another question you asked is about features or functions which you do not have from Evoq when you migrate to DNN Community:
- In general, every feature of Evoq is now available within DNN Community as either core built-in functions, or with the installation of 3rd-Party Modules. Remember, Evoq was created as a built "on top" of DNN Community, so at the heart, they are the same, you will just have some differences.
- One feature in some versions of Evoq was an ability to "log in as this user" which provided site admin the ability to log in as a member, customer, etc without knowing their username or password. This functionality is present now in many 3rd Party Modules.
- Another is the complexity level of content WorkFlow and Approval. This is present within DNN Community but is less granular than within Evoq. This still works sufficiently for most use cases, or can be supplemented with other Modules and Structured Content setup.
- Other features of Evoq such as webfarm or working with Load-balancing hardware can be reproduced depending on your hosting environment with either hardware or software solutions for load balancing. Most DNN instances to not use or need this.
- You mention the short-lived, ill-fated Liquid Content feature of Evoq... this can be translated to Structured Content within many other 3rd Party Modules and solutions from Forms&List, OpenContent, 2SXC and XMod Pro to simple HTML module content. The only hurdle there is that the data is hard to export and will be easiest when the license is still active and you can build templates to output all of the content in an easy to copy and export format.
- There are a few other features, but all are able to be migrated in one approach or another.

I have never met a DNN instance which couldn't be upgraded, updated, migrated to community or improved. We can help get your DNN site in great shape. I could go on with more details, but the last part is to encourage you and anyone else to reach out to the DNN Community of companies, we'll be glad to help take on a migration project for you or to assist you in performing your own. Use the DNN Community User Groups like the Southern Fried DNN User Group to ask questions, and participate in the Slack and Discord spaces for help.