Kirk Liemohn is a Principal Software Engineer at ThreeWill. He has spent nearly a decade helping clients transform and migrate their content from one platform to another (typically to Microsoft 365) with a focus on the more complex scenarios. Prior to his transformation focus, Kirk led several key SharePoint integrations at ThreeWill including Jive, Polycom, and Confluence.
Migrating content involves more than just transferring data; it often requires transforming the content to fit the new environment. Jive content typically includes HTML for the content body (or uploaded file description) and may also feature images, links, comments, attachment files, and more. Jive stores and references these items in a distinct way, different from Microsoft 365. Proper transformation is crucial, especially for links, as they may become invalid after migration if not handled correctly. This blog post explores the different types of links in Jive to SharePoint migration and the importance of transforming them.
Types of Links
Users create various types of links in Jive, and for our migrations, we focus on links that are:
- Within Jive content (collaborative document, blog post, discussion, etc.)
- Within a comment/response on a piece of content
- On a home/landing page, such as in a Formatted Text widget
We do not modify links within physical files (e.g., Word documents or PDFs). Here are the common types of links you’ll find in content, comments, and landing pages:
External Links: These links direct users to content outside of Jive, appearing as a standard URL (e.g.,<a href="https://www.bing.com" target="_new" rel="noreferrer noopener">) or disguised within Jive (e.g., <a href="https://ourjive.com/external-link.jspa?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com" target="_new" rel="noreferrer noopener">).
@Mentions: Users often @mention another user, a Jive place (space, group, or project), or a piece of content, creating a link to that profile or place.
Embedded Images: Any displayed image is essentially a link within an <img> tag. These can reference external images on the Internet or images uploaded by the user while authoring content/comments. Some images are reusable “static images” predefined for the place.
Embedded Videos: Similar to images, embedded videos can be external (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo), within the same or different Jive place, or uploaded during content creation.
Attachments: Occasionally, users attach files to their content and then link to these attachments within the content or comments.
Landing Pages: Jive allows up to five home/landing pages per place, which can be referenced from within content.
Other Jive Links: These are miscellaneous links users create by copying from the Jive UI, such as search results pages (e.g.,< href="https://ourjive.com/search.jspa?q=stuff" target="_new" rel="noreferrer noopener">*).
Why Transform Links in Jive to SharePoint Migration?
Clients find transforming links crucial as Jive users frequently use links. Based on our experience, each piece of content can be expected to contain an average of four links. Properly transforming these links ensures continuity and functionality in the new environment, preserving the intent behind the original content.
Comprehensive Coverage by ThreeWill
ThreeWill’s migration process covers all scenarios except for some “other Jive links,” for which we have fallback approaches. Our decade-long experience and continuously enhanced migration tools handle these scenarios’ complexities. This includes migrating physical images and videos and ensuring we correctly reference their links in the new environment.
We also manage references to content in other places or actual places, requiring complete place rationalization before migration. This involves knowing which Jive places are migrating, filtering out old content, and determining the target SharePoint site URLs. If we cannot resolve a link, we link to a ‘Not Migrated’ page, providing users with helpful information and guidance on retrieving missing content from a technical archive if supported post-migration.
Conclusion
Understanding and transforming the various types of links in Jive to SharePoint migration is crucial for a successful migration. If you have Jive content to migrate, consider ThreeWill. As one client recently remarked:
“People were pleasantly surprised that the [Jive] links are now translated into SharePoint links.”
READY TO MIGRATE YOUR JIVE CONTENT? CONTACT THREEWILL TODAY!
