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CMS Web Support

Guidance: Archived Content During Site Cutover

The Web Services team will not maintain public-facing archived pages in the legacy CMS environment (including /commcms/, /sbroot/, and similar directories) after a site is cut over to the new platform. Once the new environment is live, the legacy header, footer, navigation, and media/links in the content will be out of date and structurally/visually broken. Remediating these issues would require the same level of effort as rebuilding the content in the new site, which defeats the purpose of keeping a legacy archive online.

Your old site will remain accessible in the Modern Campus staging environment for at least six months after your new site goes live in case you need to access and migrate anything else.

As part of the cutover process, you can request a backup of your files, images, PDFs and other media, or a complete static archive of your site. This archive will consist of PHP files and associated assets that represent a faithful, point-in-time copy of the site as it existed prior to cutover. The archive is intended for long-term reference and recordkeeping purposes.

Departments can retain this archive in a shared drive or internal storage location. When archived pages need to be accessed, users will need to set up a local server environment to view the PHP files. This can be done by:

  1. Installing a local server package such as XAMPP, MAMP, or WAMP on their computer
  2. Placing the archived site folder in the appropriate server directory (typically "htdocs" for XAMPP or similar)
  3. Starting the local server application
  4. Accessing the site through their web browser using localhost (e.g., http://localhost/sitename)

Once the local server is running, the site can be navigated offline using the preserved links and structure, allowing users to view pages in their original context without the content remaining publicly available.

Any content that must remain publicly accessible after cutover must be migrated and rebuilt in the new CMS templates and brought into compliance with current standards.