Migration to Kentico Xperience 13 Core for the State Agency

Bits Orchestra is a Kentico Bronze Partner with more than 15 years in the Kentico ecosystem and 20+ Kentico‑based projects delivered for public‑sector and enterprise organizations in regulated and accessibility‑sensitive environments. 

About the client and digital responsibilities

The agency is responsible for protecting and improving the state’s air, water, and land resources while supporting a healthy economy and quality of life. Its website is used by citizens, businesses, local governments, and advocacy groups to access permits, regulatory updates, public reports, and environmental alerts.

This role creates a high bar for availability, performance, and accessibility. The agency needed a platform that could reliably serve information during peak interest—such as new regulations or incident reports—while ensuring an inclusive digital experience for all users, including those using assistive technologies.

Key challenges on Kentico 12 Portal Engine

1. Performance and scalability

Over several years, the Kentico 12 Portal Engine implementation had grown more complex, with numerous custom widgets and large WYSIWYG content blocks. Pages were slow under spikes, so we introduced a migration layer and re‑implemented with a lean component model, cutting average response time by 93.7%.

2. End‑of‑Life and risk exposure

Kentico 12 had reached the end of its active development lifecycle, introducing growing risk around security, compatibility, and support. For a public‑sector agency subject to compliance and governance requirements, continuing to invest in an unsupported version was not sustainable.

3. Accessibility and editorial limitations

Inconsistent structures, widget‑heavy rich text, and accumulated layout variations made it difficult to ensure a consistently accessible experience. Editors relied on developers for layout changes, so we introduced reusable components; 80% of routine updates are now editor‑handled.

Migration approach to Kentico Xperience 13 Core

1. Assessment and content mapping

The engagement began with a detailed assessment of the Kentico 12 Portal Engine instance: page types, templates, WYSIWYG usage, widgets, media libraries, permissions, and URL patterns. This allowed the team to identify what could be mapped directly to Kentico Xperience 13 Core, what required transformation, and where new components would provide long‑term value.

2. Migration layer and automation

To minimize manual effort and risk, Bits Orchestra implemented a migration layer that connected the Kentico 12 database with the new Kentico Xperience 13 Core instance. Automated routines moved pages, attachments, alternative URLs, and related metadata in controlled batches, with logging to detect anomalies early.

One of the biggest technical challenges was handling widgets embedded in WYSIWYG fields. The migration logic parsed rich‑text content, detected widget markers, and replaced them with structured components compatible with the new architecture, preserving layout intent while moving away from fragile, widget‑heavy content.

3. Component‑based content model

In Kentico Xperience 13 Core, the site was re‑implemented using a component‑based content model aligned with the agency’s main page types. Editors now assemble pages from reusable components instead of editing large blocks of unstructured rich text.

This approach standardizes layout and accessibility patterns and allows many changes to be made directly in the Kentico admin without developer support. Within the first month after launch, more than 80% of routine updates were handled by editors without developer intervention.

Migration risks and how they were reduced

Large CMS upgrades carry several common risks, which were explicitly managed for this project.

• Downtime risk
  The goal was to keep unplanned downtime under 15 minutes during cutover. A staging environment and rehearsed migrations allowed the team to validate content and performance before launch, and the final cutover was scheduled during off‑peak hours with a rollback plan. Actual user‑visible downtime was kept under 10 minutes.

• SEO loss risk
  The site had roughly 2,800 indexable URLs and many external references. Over 95% of URLs were preserved, and redirects covered the remaining paths, helping to protect organic visibility and bookmarked resources. Post‑launch monitoring showed no significant decline in organic traffic in the first 60 days.

• Content loss risk
  About 3,500 pages and 6,000+ media files, including versioned and unpublished items, were migrated via automated routines. Sampling‑based QA revealed issues in less than 1% of migrated entries, which were corrected before launch.

• Editor disruption risk
  The new component model was mapped clearly to existing layouts, and editors received training and a sandbox environment ahead of launch. This reduced ramp‑up time and kept content updates flowing during and after the migration.

• Accessibility regression risk
  Key templates were reviewed against accessibility best practices before and after migration. Automated and manual checks were run on high‑traffic sections, and no critical accessibility regressions were reported following go‑live.

Performance and stability results

The migration delivered significant improvements in performance and stability. Under load testing, the Kentico Xperience 13 Core implementation consistently outperformed the legacy Portal Engine site.

The migration reduced average response time by 93.7%, significantly improving performance during peak regulatory traffic and public information campaigns. A GTMetrix performance grade A (100%) under load confirmed that the new architecture can sustain these gains in real‑world conditions.

For citizens and stakeholders, this translates into faster access to environmental information and fewer timeouts. For the agency, it provides a more predictable and maintainable platform for future digital initiatives.

Who this migration is relevant for

This case is especially relevant for organizations that:

• Operate public‑facing websites on Kentico 11 or 12 in regulated or public‑sector environments.

• Depend on Kentico 12 Portal Engine with complex WYSIWYG content and custom widgets that are becoming difficult to maintain.

• Need to modernize to Kentico Xperience 13 Core while preserving content, URLs, SEO equity, and editorial workflows.