WordPress Web Site Migration

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Nancy Sadusky
Nancy Sadusky ✭
Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
We are considering having Blackbaud design a new WordPress web site for us but that only involves a home page and interior page (2 pages). We would be responsible for creating the rest of the web site content. We currently have a WordPress web site at GoDaddy and would like to migrate the current site to the new BB site when it is done. However, Blackbaud is telling us that, for security reasons, we cannot import the GoDaddy WordPress page files and must recreate them manually in the new site. Are there any suggestions as to how this could be done quickly? We are a small organization, and I am the only staff member working on the web site. Our current site at GoDaddy is over 100 pages. Thanks for any suggestions!
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  • Chris McGrane
    Chris McGrane ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic

    Nancy Sadusky:

    We are considering having Blackbaud design a new WordPress web site for us but that only involves a home page and interior page (2 pages). We would be responsible for creating the rest of the web site content. We currently have a WordPress web site at GoDaddy and would like to migrate the current site to the new BB site when it is done. However, Blackbaud is telling us that, for security reasons, we cannot import the GoDaddy WordPress page files and must recreate them manually in the new site. Are there any suggestions as to how this could be done quickly? We are a small organization, and I am the only staff member working on the web site. Our current site at GoDaddy is over 100 pages. Thanks for any suggestions!

    Blackbaud is integrating your NetCommunity site into Wordpress? I haven't heard of that before, but apart from your theme files, which can be edited within Wordpress, you should also be able to use the Wordpress "Import / Export" tool on both sites - export your Wordpress post / pages to the generated XML file, then import on your new WP installation within the control panel. Personally, I wouldn't let Blackbaud host a Wordpress for our organization.


     - Chris McGrane

  • Nancy Sadusky
    Nancy Sadusky ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply

    Hi Chris,


    Thanks for your comments. Blackbaud does not host the web
    site, it will be hosted at Armor Defense through a partnership with
    Blackbaud. Regarding the migration of files, I am aware of the
    import/export feature on Wordpress and that would be my preference,
    but Blackbaud will not allow the import of WordPress page files for
    security purposes. They are saying the pages have to be rebuilt
    manually. That's why I was asking if anyone knows of a good way of
    doing this. 


    Why would you be reluctant to let Blackbaud host a Wordpress site
    for your org?


    Thanks for your help.




    Nancy Sadusky

    Director of Online Communications



    Save the Manatee Club

    500 N. Maitland Ave.

    Maitland, FL 32751



    Phone: 1-800-432-JOIN (5646)







     

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  • Richard Sykora
    Richard Sykora ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply

    Nancy Sadusky:

    Hi Chris,


    Thanks for your comments. Blackbaud does not host the web site, it will be hosted at Armor Defense through a partnership with Blackbaud. Regarding the migration of files, I am aware of the import/export feature on Wordpress and that would be my preference, but Blackbaud will not allow the import of WordPress page files for security purposes. They are saying the pages have to be rebuilt manually. That's why I was asking if anyone knows of a good way of doing this. 


    Why would you be reluctant to let Blackbaud host a Wordpress site for your org?

     

    Thanks for your help.

     



    Nancy Sadusky


    Director of Online Communications


    Save the Manatee Club


    500 N. Maitland Ave.


    Maitland, FL 32751






    Phone: 1-800-432-JOIN (5646)


     




     




     


    Sign up for our free e-mails -- Paddle Tales E-Newsletter, Action Alerts, and Manatee Gifts lists: 

     


    Boaters -- get the free Manatee Alert App for iPhone and iPad


     


    Join Us On:




     



     

    That is correct, Blackbaud has never hosted Word Press. WP is hosted by Armour. Some sites are still being migrated from Media Temple (previous hosting provider for Word Press) to Armour. 

  • Chris McGrane
    Chris McGrane ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    I would recommend hosting Wordpress yourself on a Digital Ocean box, Blackbaud will give you grid hosting which is statistically slower and more expensive than a dedicated cloud server through a modern hosting solution. Also, without an open API for NetCommunity, there will be little functionallity that can actually work in unison with Wordpress, if any. Our organization uses Wordpres, but we embed our unstyled NetCommunity pages via iFrame. This solution has increased our sales and made for a better UI all together. Note: I'm a developer with over 12 years experience.


    -Chris McGrane
  • Nancy Sadusky
    Nancy Sadusky ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply

    Thanks for your thoughts Chris. I believe this is a relatively
    new service that Blackbaud is offering. The website would be hosted
    on Amor's PCI-Compliant
    cloud. 





  • Lance Olenik 2
    Lance Olenik 2 ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Chris McGrane:

    I would recommend hosting Wordpress yourself on a Digital Ocean box, Blackbaud will give you grid hosting which is statistically slower and more expensive than a dedicated cloud server through a modern hosting solution. Also, without an open API for NetCommunity, there will be little functionallity that can actually work in unison with Wordpress, if any. Our organization uses Wordpres, but we embed our unstyled NetCommunity pages via iFrame. This solution has increased our sales and made for a better UI all together. Note: I'm a developer with over 12 years experience.


    -Chris McGrane

    Hey Chris, I suppose this is unrelated to this thread, but you said that you are embedding your NC pages via iFrame ... didn't Blackbaud "turn off" the ability to embed NC in iFrames? I was doing that a while ago and with an NC update, the iFrames stopped working. What version are you on?


    (If it's more appropriate, you can email me at lolenik@maf.org; that way we don't tie up this unrelated thread.)

  • Chris McGrane
    Chris McGrane ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    There is NO security threat when showing pages via iFrame. This is because of the global CORS policy. If Blackbaud is securing transactions correctly, there is no risk in iframing pages, I think disabling them was a marketing strategy to limit the ability of clients to extend their NC. Anyway, you can make a request to NetCommunity support to re-enable iframes by toggling a flag in your site settings.


    -CM
  • Pallavi Paranjape
    Pallavi Paranjape ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Please allow me to clarify Blackbaud’s perspective on iFrame integration. We explained our rationale for the policy change in this KB article when we updated our policy regarding iFrames integration: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/74384. To summarize, Blackbaud is a level one PCI Compliant company, and our biggest priority is protecting the sensitive data of our clients and their donors. PCI Security Standards Council has determined that iFrame integration creates a vulnerability for hackers to add malicious code to forms that could compromise personal or payment data of your donors. Consequently, allowing pages to be iFramed by unauthorized domains via iFrames will result in a failed PCI Compliance audit. In light of that fact, we made the decision that no new iFraming would be possible in NetCommunity.

     
    For those of you currently using iFrames, we will have discussions after the end of year giving season regarding your options moving forward. We did not want to interrupt the good work that is critical for end of year missions. However, we do have plans to address iFrames in greater detail in early 2017.


    Regards,

    Pallavi Paranjape

    Product Manager - Blackbaud NetCommunity
  • Lance Olenik 2
    Lance Olenik 2 ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Do you have any updates on this? I'm curious if we will be able to embed BBNC iframes in the future? If not, is there any talk of an API for RE7, so that we aren't locked into a Blackbaud CMS? I think Blackbaud will lose more and more customers if they lock things down so tight. Plenty of other CRMs have APIs, including other Blackbaud products.

    Pallavi Paranjape:
    Please allow me to clarify Blackbaud’s perspective on iFrame integration. We explained our rationale for the policy change in this KB article when we updated our policy regarding iFrames integration: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/74384. To summarize, Blackbaud is a level one PCI Compliant company, and our biggest priority is protecting the sensitive data of our clients and their donors. PCI Security Standards Council has determined that iFrame integration creates a vulnerability for hackers to add malicious code to forms that could compromise personal or payment data of your donors. Consequently, allowing pages to be iFramed by unauthorized domains via iFrames will result in a failed PCI Compliance audit. In light of that fact, we made the decision that no new iFraming would be possible in NetCommunity.

     
    For those of you currently using iFrames, we will have discussions after the end of year giving season regarding your options moving forward. We did not want to interrupt the good work that is critical for end of year missions. However, we do have plans to address iFrames in greater detail in early 2017.


    Regards,

    Pallavi Paranjape

    Product Manager - Blackbaud NetCommunity

     

  • Chris McGrane
    Chris McGrane ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Photogenic
    Hello Lance,


    We are an orginzation acitvely using iFrames within NetCommunity. While I have confirmed with my team of developers that there are no security risks (Blackbaud will disagree), support for iFrames will be dropped either way. We have not yet heard any news about this change from Blackbaud and no representative has reached out to us. We rarely receive any direct communication from Blackbaud regarding changes or updates besides newsletter posts. We are slowly moving away from NetCommunity because of Blackbauds inability to update the platform to compete with modern applications. We have already migrated our email system to Mailchimp and our donation transactions to WooCommerce. We have already seen a significant increase in online sales and usability. I'm tired or arguing with Blackbaud and also tired of waiting for them to release something that isnt just a few minor updates, with no user-submitted requests honored. It saddnes me that these systems are limited, especially when their API used to be free for developers. The price on the API is now in the thousands range without any justifiable reason.


    - Chris
  • Pallavi Paranjape
    Pallavi Paranjape ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Hi Lance, RE7 does have an API. It is a COM API and it’s available to on-premise RE7 customers for a license fee. However, I’m afraid it’s not suited to something like a Wordpress integration. Offering our clients robust integration capabilities is a major focus for Blackbaud moving forward. RE NXT (which integrates with NetCommunity) includes SKY API which offers customers the flexibility to use a third party CMS like WordPress, allowing you to integrate relevant data between your website and RE NXT. SKY API has a separate licensing structure and is free for RENXT customers to get started. You can learn more about SKY API by checking out this link https://developer.sky.blackbaud.com or reaching out to your account executive.


    Pallavi

    Lance Olenik:

    Do you have any updates on this? I'm curious if we will be able to embed BBNC iframes in the future? If not, is there any talk of an API for RE7, so that we aren't locked into a Blackbaud CMS? I think Blackbaud will lose more and more customers if they lock things down so tight. Plenty of other CRMs have APIs, including other Blackbaud products.

    Pallavi Paranjape:
    Please allow me to clarify Blackbaud’s perspective on iFrame integration. We explained our rationale for the policy change in this KB article when we updated our policy regarding iFrames integration: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/74384. To summarize, Blackbaud is a level one PCI Compliant company, and our biggest priority is protecting the sensitive data of our clients and their donors. PCI Security Standards Council has determined that iFrame integration creates a vulnerability for hackers to add malicious code to forms that could compromise personal or payment data of your donors. Consequently, allowing pages to be iFramed by unauthorized domains via iFrames will result in a failed PCI Compliance audit. In light of that fact, we made the decision that no new iFraming would be possible in NetCommunity.

     
    For those of you currently using iFrames, we will have discussions after the end of year giving season regarding your options moving forward. We did not want to interrupt the good work that is critical for end of year missions. However, we do have plans to address iFrames in greater detail in early 2017.


    Regards,

    Pallavi Paranjape

    Product Manager - Blackbaud NetCommunity

     

     

     

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