Portal for international research, innovation and collaboration

The ‘Kooperation International’ information portal, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), provides information on international research, innovation and scientific collaboration. As a central information platform, it connects funding organisations, research institutions, companies and educational establishments, and provides comprehensive information on countries, funding programmes, projects and events.

The existing TYPO3 platform was to be taken over by a new development partner, technically modernised and further developed in the long term – without disrupting the day-to-day operation of this business-critical application.

Challenge

• Takeover of an existing enterprise portal with an extensive codebase and custom TYPO3 extensions
• Analysis and documentation of the existing system architecture as a basis for modernisation
• Ensuring data integrity during the migration of content, structures and configurations
• Migration to a current TYPO3 version without disrupting ongoing operations or existing functions
• Minimising risks and downtime during the takeover and upgrade

Solution

Following an analysis of the existing platform, Q3i assumed technical responsibility for the system. We modernised the bespoke extensions, eliminated legacy technical issues and migrated the platform to a current version of TYPO3. At the same time, we established the technical foundation to enable the efficient development of new functions and the further optimisation of existing processes.

Further development

• Integration of CleverReach via a REST API for the automated management and synchronisation of newsletter subscribers
• Modernisation of the news importer – this ensures more stable and faster processing of external news sources
• Expansion of the password-protected subscription management system with improved user guidance
• Optimisation of the Solr search function so that internally prioritised search terms and topics are given greater weight in the results
• Implementation of comprehensive accessibility measures, including the successful support of an external accessibility audit

The platform was taken over without interrupting ongoing operations, migrated to the latest version of TYPO3 and enhanced with new functionality.