Salesforce Storefront Reference Architecture (SFRA) was launched in 2018 by Salesforce. It was launched with a mobile-first optimized UX so that businesses can provide a smooth user experience in the mobile-dominated world. The predecessor to SFRA was SiteGenesis Architecture. SiteGenesis was made for a desktop generation and it doesn’t support a native mobile web experience.
Naturally, SFRA is more advantageous in today’s world. But the difference between the both doesn’t end there. SFRA has more advanced features and I have written about the major difference between SFRA and SiteGenesis here.
Businesses that are using SiteGenesis are looking for a way to migrate to Salesforce SFRA and it is the perfect solution for eCommerce. As experts in Salesforce Commerce Cloud, we advocate hiring a professional agency that can handle your salesforce migration.
Who Will Benefit the Most from Migrating to SFRA?
Salesforce Storefront Reference Architecture is an ideal solution for both B2B and B2C businesses. If you tick any of the following options, your business will benefit from implementing SFRA solutions.
- Businesses looking to build new eCommerce sites
- Salesforce Customers probing for new sites
- Salesforce Customers looking for rebranding sites or building regional sites
- Salesforce Customers with sites build on SiteGenesis and looking to redesign their sites.
Migration from SiteGenesis to SFRA:
There are two ways to go about migration from SiteGenesis to SFRA. They are,
1. Leveraging both architectures and the cartridges are separately tread.
2. Employ SFRA completely, redesigning and rebuilding the site.
Our salesforce experts advocate and prefer using the second method of rebuilding the site using a single architecture. Although it might take longer, the entire site will be built uniformly and thereby avoiding site degradation. Converting the site to a single architecture standard is preferred because of the following reasons,
- It provides the user with a standard and coherent experience.
- The development process of two architectures might get complicated due to challenges in integration, resulting in a ‘buggy’ platform.
Comprehensive testing and quicker Quality Assessment process. - Avoids multiple coding standards and styles while developing the site, which might be confusing.
- In a standard single architecture, the business user and the consumer can experience a single, simple, and standardised ease of usage
Concerns Regarding Implementation of SFRA from SiteGenesis:
There are some concerns that need to be given importance while implementing the SFRA solution to your site. The first concern is regarding the data available on the old SiteGenesis site. Both the data and the existing site can be used for the SFRA site. During development, a temporary site can be made if both storefronts are in the same environment. However, data must be migrated from one site to another during implementation based on the requirement.
In SiteGenesis, for developing new features and functionalities, the existing code has to be overridden or replaced. But that is not the case in SFRA architecture. In order to promote proper adoption of future updates, SFRA features are extended in the existing code. Therefore, the current features and code from the SiteGenesis storefront have to be reviewed against the SFRA.
The migration process from SiteGenesis architecture to SFRA might take any time from six weeks to six months depending on the complexity of your storefront and its features in it. The process is very delicate and it should be done with the utmost care since the slightest issue can affect the user experience. In this consumer-centric economy, there is nothing more valuable than providing an excellent user experience.
As stated earlier, it is preferable to outsource the SFRA migration process to a professional salesforce partner agency. ASR Tech Group has undertaken 100+ projects around the globe and our people are salesforce certified experts, who deliver the required solutions on time. Contact us Today!
