More than just migrating to Magento 2

What was our task?

Our challenge in this project was the efficient migration of the Wialan sales platform from Magento to Magento 2, while maintaining the entire frontend and all functionalities.

Initial goals

Since Adobe officially stopped supporting the previous version of Magento, it was necessary to transfer the Wialan platform to Magento 2 as quickly and efficiently as possible. Otherwise, our Partner’s platform would be exposed to software errors and compromised security of customer data.

The existing platform was based on many modules and plug-ins compatible with Magento 1, so we had to perform an appropriate analysis and decide what to do to prevent the store from being burdened with so many plug-ins again after migration to Magento 2, but at the same time to ensure that our Partner he didn’t have to give up the store’s appearance and functionality that he wanted. We also wanted to improve the quality of the template code and reduce the page loading time, as well as streamline the purchasing process.

1. The existing platform was based on many modules compatible with Magento 1, which covered some Magento 2 functionalities, and others would interfere with the smooth functioning of the platform after migration to Magento 2.
2. The project was also problematic in terms of complexity – Wialan consists of three websites, two sales platforms and the Allegro marketplace, which is a tough nut to crack when integrating with ERP.
3. The client had a ready template that he also wanted to use in the new implementation. The quality of the code in the finished template was not satisfactory, which meant that the website did not load quickly enough and had performance problems.

How did we manage to achieve this?

We worked in a team of several people: project manager, tech lead, backend Magento developer, frontend Magento developer and a tester, and in the final phase of the project we added three more developers to make the work run more efficiently.
We had to decide whether the platform after migration would have a ready-made template or our own template, dedicated to the Wialan brand. We chose the second option because we were not satisfied with the quality of the code of the previous template – we created an original template that is safer in terms of performance and also reduces the page loading time.

1. We have taken up the challenge of difficult integration with ERP and optimization of the Magento API so that the main communication within the platform is based on the API, a dedicated interface in which data is exchanged instantly, almost in real time.
2. We decided to remove too many plugins and replace them with other modules in order to limit their number in Magento 2, ensuring that no data conflicts occur at the migration level.
3. We also customized the checkout, which was important to our Partner – including: the postal code and city are mutually verified in the Poczta Polska database, and the section related to the invoice or receipt works faster. Magento checkout is extremely delicate, so completing this task without disturbing the stability of the checkout required a carefully considered process.
4. We also changed the transfer module and adapted the order flow to Wialan’s new business goals, which led to a change in the mechanism for informing customers about invoices – now each electronic invoice issued on the ERP side is automatically communicated to Magento, and then sent by e-mail to the customer and available from the order level .

Development?

The Wialan project was a breakthrough for us because our Partner is very business aware – he understands e-commerce and Magento so much that we were able to easily communicate, also about development and the future that awaits us after migration. We’re going for more!

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