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Khoros to Salesforce Experience Cloud Migration: How AC Helped Flexera Address Common Challenges

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Considering a move away from Khoros? Tired of premium pricing, slow support responses, or the daunting prospect of migrating to Aurora? You’ve come to the right place.

This article explores the transition from Khoros to Salesforce, using our recent work with Flexera, a software asset and cloud management leader, as a real-world example. We’ll walk you through the challenges and solutions involved in a smooth and effective migration.

Reasons Why You Should Migrate from Khoros to Salesforce

Migrating from Khoros to Salesforce often seems like a hard experience but the results you may get in the long run outweigh. Khoros can be a significant investment, and the required upgrade to Aurora often involves a complex data migration process, potentially leading to data loss or other issues. Switching to Salesforce offers a powerful, integrated platform with greater flexibility and scalability.

Typical Challenges in Khoros to Salesforce Migration: Flexera Use Case 

The global enterprise turned to Advanced Communities to migrate two of its existing communities – Flexera and Revenera – from Khoros to Salesforce. The main objectives were to have a single platform, provide additional flexibility, and preserve all the historical data and functionality. Based on Flexera’s experience, here are some common challenges you might encounter:

Exported Data Format

Data exported from Khoros communities can sometimes be difficult to understand. This can make it tricky to transfer this data smoothly into Salesforce. Inconsistencies and inaccuracies can add complexity to the migration. This can lead to extra challenges during the migration process.

Data Structure Compatibility

Khoros and Salesforce store data very differently. For Flexera, the Advanced Communities team has migrated two community forums, involving blog posts and user data, and carefully, restructuring everything to align with Salesforce while maintaining object relationships and metadata.

Data Volume and Complexity

Khoros communities typically host great volumes of historical data. This data might span user interactions, content contributions, and community history. Migrating this data accurately was a major focus of the Flexera project for Advanced Communities.

Custom Functionality

Khoros communities frequently rely on custom features not native to Salesforce. Understanding business goals and user needs, as we did with Flexera, is essential for replicating this functionality effectively.

In the screenshot, you see the Flexera community homepage designed by the Advanced Communities team.

Flexera homepage done by AC

As seen in the screenshot, there is the Revenera community home page which was fully designed and implemented by Advanced Communities. It contains a custom Announcement component that is easily configurable by an Admin and displays up to 3 important announcements with the ability to add links. 

User Authentication and Single Sign-On (SSO)

Another challenge was to ensure security for users. We implemented SSO for Flexera, enabling seamless login across their Salesforce communities.

Salesforce Platform Limitations

While powerful, Salesforce has limitations. For instance, Chatter posts are quite strict in terms of allowed HTML tags for posts formatting and have a limit of 10,000 characters. Careful planning was needed to accommodate these constraints without impacting user engagement.

Navigating the Khoros to Salesforce Migration: Insights from Our Own Experience

Here’s the process we followed for Flexera, which can serve as a blueprint for your own migration:

1. Assessments Before Migration

We thoroughly analyzed Flexera’s Khoros setup to understand how their data, features, and customizations would translate to Salesforce.

2. Data Transformation 

The AC team used scripts and automated tools to transform Khoros data into a format that’s compatible with Salesforce. This process involved making sure the data was accurate and all relationships were checked.

As led by Flexera’s project example, Advanced Communities have used a set of native Salesforce Experience Cloud features for migrated Khoros communities:

  • Salesforce Chatter – feed with questions & best answers, etc;
  • Chatter Groups;
  • Knowledge articles;
  • Data Categories;
  • Topics for knowledge base articles;
  • Gamification – Badges, Missions, Levels, Points, and Leaderboard;

For instance, there are Flexera and Revenera knowledge bases: the AC team migrated all the articles, categorization, and related data (though the pages weren’t built by us):

Flexera knowledge base
Revenera knowledge base

3. Feature Migration 

We rebuilt essential Khoros features within Salesforce, including custom announcement components, user badges, and knowledge base topic management. This involved tasks like point recalculation, HTML tag cleanup, and restructuring post and comment hierarchies.

4. User Authentication

SSO was implemented for seamless access to both the Flexera and Revenera communities.

5. Staging and Testing

Rigorous testing in a staging environment allowed us to identify and resolve any issues before going live.

What Results Were Achieved in Khoros to Salesforce Migration?

The migration of Flexera’s two large communities to Salesforce Experience Cloud resulted in:  

  • Seamless data integration: all historical Khoros data was migrated successfully and completely.
  • Improved user experience: the modern interface and intuitive navigation of the new communities enhance user engagement.
  • Enhanced scalability: built on Salesforce, the communities are now ready to grow with the client’s business needs.
  • Streamlined access: a unified login via SSO simplifies user access across both communities.

Need Assistance Migrating from Khoros to Salesforce Experience Cloud? 

Advanced Communities specializes in Salesforce migration services and offers native-to-Salesforce apps ideal for building user-friendly communities. Contact us to discuss your migration needs. Our expert team will guide you through the process, ensuring a smooth transition and helping you achieve your business goals.

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