Datgel: migrating from nopCommerce 1.9 to 3.8

Challenge

Datgel has been providing specialist software, advice, training and support to geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering firms worldwide for more than 11 years. Due to constant investment in R&D they can offer a full suite of mature, ready-to-use software products for field data entry, laboratory, data analysis, reporting, 2D and 3D modelling and web-based data sharing. They cater to all budgets with packaged software options and software development in .NET.

Datgel already had a custom version of nopCommerce 1.9 with some domain models like license, license type, location, region, organization, site, downloads, etc added to simplify working process with their customers.

The main tasks for Dev Partner were:

• to upgrade the website to the latest nopCommerce version
• to implement the client’s custom logic as plugins and add new features
• to use Azure Blob Storage for downloads
• to migrate the client’s asp.net webpages to a CMS system, so that a non-developer would be able to edit all content

Solution

Dev Partner upgraded the website from version 1.9 to 3.8 and implemented the requested features from the scratch because of the differences in technologies: nopCommerce 1.9 used webforms platform while nopCommerce 3.8 uses ASP.NET MVC.

Two types of difficulties encountered during this project:

1) import of asp.net webform pages to CMS. The Developer had to convert such asp.net webforms elements as loginview which allows to show different content for different users. So some sort of engine which allows to use controls in text had to be implemented for this and Dev Partner added macros to their CMS plugin to support these features. They also implemented some marcoses to support the logic of asp.net webform controls which were used.

2) import of the client’s old DB structure to a new one. nopCommerce’s DB structure has changed significantly since the 1.9 version. The client also had a lot of their own tables changed, so the Developer had to create a new table structure to store the client’s data independently from nopCommerce data. Special sql scripts were written, which moved not only nopCommerce data to the 3.8 version but also the client’s data to a new table structure.

Dev Partner had also developed mobile site version based on their Unify theme, which supports responsive design.

Result

• 160 pages were migrated from asp.net webforms to the CMS plugin
• 1400 products were moved to a new DB and to a new structure
• 2000 customers were moved to a new DB

About the partner: Dev Partner, a company based in Poland and Belarus, is a dedicated team of software and network engineers, system architects, and program managers. They satisfy customers and clients by providing cost-effective, innovative solutions to their business needs. Dev Partner delivers on time and within budget.