Cascade migration FAQs

Since 2011, Messiah has used Jadu CMS as its enterprise-level content management system (CMS). At that time, Jadu, a UK-based company, was seeking to expand into the U.S. higher education market. Over time, however, it has become increasingly evident that the platform's core functionalities are not fully aligned or able to keep pace with the unique needs of an academic institution, and the majority of their educational clients have subsequently moved away from Jadu. 

A primary challenge we've encountered is that many of Jadu's features are originally/specifically tailored for municipal government use. This misalignment has led to a noticeable lack of essential functionalities necessary for managing and optimizing a university website effectively. Consequently, we have had to invest significantly in customizing the CMS to fill these gaps. These customizations have included enhancements to support academic program organization, integration with SmartCatalog for course information management, connectivity with Messiah University's single-sign-on system, and the development of tools for search engine optimization.

The CMS search committee consisted of various stakeholders representing the primary categories of web user groups at Messiah.

• Kris Hardy, director of web and digital marketing
• Jen Romanchak, web services manager 
• Danielle Ran, director of communications
• Bethany Parliament-Chevalier, director of enrollment technology and communication
• Allen Snook, director of information security
• Tony Wyland, director of systems and network communications
• Lori Zimmerman, executive coordinator and project manager for advancement and university partnerships

Cascade has an outstanding reputation among higher education institutions and currently works with over 330 other colleges and universities like Temple University, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon and Syracuse Universities to manage their websites. The CMS Search Committee additionally conducted reference checks with multiple colleges and universities who are current users of Cascade. 

Here are a few current Cascade client testimonials: 

• Scott Menig, Web Marketing Manager, Macomb Community College: “I’ve worked with Cascade CMS for 8 years, and one of the things I love the most about the system is that it is continuously improving and getting better.”
• Rodrigo Silva, MScIS, Manager, Digital and Web Operations at Athabasca University: “I am very pleased with Hannon Hill…every time we need support, you reply within a couple of hours at most. Once a month, I speak with someone from the Success Team about Cascade. I had several universities contact me for reference checks, and I've always had wonderful things about the product.”
• Roberta Roebuck, Senior Web Application Developer, The University of San Diego: “The Hannon Hill support team is by far the best vendor support team I have ever worked with. They are knowledgeable, friendly, and extremely responsive. The training team has always come up with applicable trainings when requested and is always available for follow up questions if needed. Sometimes our training has been onsite at USD since there are west coast reps, which is great!  Our sales contact, Blaine Herman, is always available for questions and help, and is absolutely great to work with. Overall, the personable staff are great to network with at the yearly conference, whether professionally or just having a beer with at the end of the day. It is obvious that the entire team that makes up Hannon Hill is invested in this company and product, and it shows through their attitudes and personalities, their hard work, and of course their end product that continues to get even better with each release.”

View more quotes and case studies here - https://www.hannonhill.com/our-customers/index.html

The web editing process will evolve to match the enhanced capabilities of Cascade CMS and all CMS users will all require training on the new system prior to the migration. For the time being, all web editors will maintain their current web access and web editing capabilites. For web support, you can continue to submit web help tickets at messiah.edu/web and reach out to Jen Romanchak with questions at jromanchak@messiah.edu. 

You will not be responsible for directly migrating your website into Cascade. However, your involvement is essential in preparing your site for migration. Before the migration, we ask that you conduct a thorough content audit to identify and remove outdated content that should not be transferred to Cascade. This includes reviewing all web pages, downloadable files (such as PDFs and Word documents), friendly URLs, and xForms.

Two weeks prior to your scheduled migration, a member of our team will contact you with a detailed migration document to be used for the content audit. This document will include a list of all your pages and website analytics to help you make informed decisions about which content should be migrated.

The Messiah University website consists of over 200 “sub-sites.” Starting in January 2025, we will begin migrating 10 websites each week, with the goal of completing the migration by July 2025. In late October, a member of the web services team will contact you with the specific migration timeframe for your website(s).

We understand that the spring semester can be a busy time for many campus offices. If you have an extenuating circumstance regarding your migration timeframe, please reach out to Jen Romanchak at jromanchak@messiah.edu to discuss your request.

No, not at this time. Any web content outside of Jadu will not be migrated and can continue to be used at this time.

Yes, you can take steps ahead of time to help streamline the migration process. Before the migration, the web services team  will conduct a content audit of your site to identify and remove outdated or obsolete content. To assist with this, you can begin deleting old and unnecessary content from Jadu. 

Additionally, it’s important to audit the URLs you are using in publications, QR codes or emails. Following the migration, redirects will need to be set up to ensure these links continue to work. Preparing a list of these elements in advance will help expedite the content audit and ensure a smoother migration process.

To ensure a smooth transition, the university will offer training sessions in Cascade before your site is migrated. These sessions will fully prepare website editors and grant access to Cascade one week before the site goes live.

During the migration to our new content management system, the design and functionality of your website will remain the same. While the design won't change significantly, we are updating the site’s code framework to align with modern standards and best practices. As a result, you may notice minor differences between the design and layout between Jadu and Cascade during the migration process.

We understand that the spring semester can be a busy time for many campus offices. If you have an extenuating circumstance, please reach out to Jen Romanchak at jromanchak@messiah.edu to discuss your request.

We do not anticipate any significant downtime for your website during the migration to Cascade. After your site has been fully migrated, we will implement redirect rules to ensure that popular Jadu links automatically point to the corresponding pages on your Cascade site. Once these redirects are in place, the Jadu content will be removed. 

Yes, the URLs of your website will change. Unlike Jadu that uses a unique ID in the URL (example: www.messiah.edu/info/21621/faqs), Cascade uses a directory based URL system (example: www.messiah.edu/web-services/faqs). 

If you are using friendly URLs in Jadu, these can be recreated in Cascade’s vanity URL module. Please begin to list out any friendly URLs used by your department in advance to ensure none are missed during the migration process. 

We will provide you with an invitaion for your Cascade training session when you are notified that your site is being migrated. Cascade training sessions will take place on campus, but virtual trainings can be offered if you have extenuating cirsumstances.

If you have an extenuating circumstance regarding your training timeframe, please contact Jen Romanchak at jromanchak@messiah.edu.

If the FAQs above don't address your questions, please contact Jen Romanchak at jromanchak@messiah.edu.