Read me Project Name: DESE Website Modernization

Document Name: Attachment D - Technical Requirements

Last Updated: 8/12/2026

This tracker contains the High-Level Technical Requirements and supporting work for the DESE website modernization.

Current Technology Environment: The DESE website primarily uses HTML and ASPX (VB.NET), JavaScript, Bootstrap 4, and custom CSS, with applications connecting to SQL Server and Oracle databases; the site is responsive and mobile-friendly.

Future State Technology: The future solution is expected to align with EOE’s preferred direction for a secure, maintainable, cloud-based Drupal 11 platform hosted in AWS, using a containerized/serverless deployment model.

The platform should support Infrastructure as Code, preferably Terraform, EOE GitHub source control, automated CI/CD, rollback, release management, monitoring, and alerting, all coordinated with the EOE Cloud Team. It should also support Drupal content management needs such as content types, fields, taxonomy, metadata, workflows, roles, permissions, publishing controls, accessibility, multilingual content, search, analytics, and migration readiness.

The Vendor should align design work with the Massachusetts Design System and use Figma and approved components for DESE’s website design. The solution should also be designed for AI readiness, not immediate AI implementation, through structured content, governed taxonomy and metadata, standards-based APIs, semantic search readiness, and future extensibility where approved.

Note: Bidders must review and respond (check/uncheck) to each requirement in this attachment, use Attachment F – Site Inventory and App Inventory.xlsx as the starting point for planning and developing the proposed modernization approach, and provide a separate narrative summary (5-page limit).

High-Level Tech Requirements

· Inventory of all pages, components, templates and server side functionality

· Document existing data structures, relationships and supporting processes

· Document current authentication, authorization and session management mechanisms

· Inventory third party integrations and external system dependencies

· Document how content is currently stored and managed

· Document existing user roles, access patterns and content ownership

· Inventory existing URL structures, redirects, SEO metadata and traffic patterns

· Inventory all content currently published on the legacy site

· Categorize content by content type, section, department, audience and owner

· Identify content to be migrated, archived, consolidated or retired

· Identify duplicate, outdated, obsolete or incomplete content

· Document existing content hierarchy and relationships

· Identify content requiring cleanup or normalization before migration

· Identify all source data required for migration

· Establish stable unique identifiers for content and related records

· Document relationships between content, users, files and related records

· Identify missing, duplicate, inconsistent or invalid source data

· Standardize source data formats where required

· Document business rules or transformations that affect how source data is presented

· Define a repeatable process for extracting source data for testing and production migration

· Produce migration ready data extracts in an agreed structured format

· Establish baseline record counts for migration validation and reconciliation

· Inventory files and media associated with site content

· Identify source locations and relationships to associated content

· Verify that referenced files exist and are accessible

· Identify missing, duplicate, orphaned or obsolete assets

· Capture available file metadata including title, description, alt text, caption and credit

· Identify files requiring special handling during migration

· Inventory all existing public facing URLs

· Identify dynamically generated or parameter-based URLs

· Document existing redirects, rewrite rules, aliases and vanity URLs

· Identify URLs that must be preserved or redirected during migration

· Identify internal links that reference legacy URLs

· Identify broken or obsolete internal links

· Identify high traffic or business critical URLs requiring additional cutover validation

· Inventory forms and interactive features supported by the current site

· Document form fields, validation rules, business rules and submission behavior

· Identify notifications, data updates and backend processing triggered by forms

· Identify file upload functionality and external integrations used by forms

· Document search, calculators, workflows and other custom application functionality

· Identify functionality to be migrated, replaced or retired

· Inventory user accounts relevant to the legacy site

· Document existing roles, permissions and access patterns

· Document authentication methods and identity provider dependencies

· Identify user to content ownership relationships

· Identify inactive, duplicate or obsolete accounts

· Inventory APIs, services, shared data sources, feeds and external applications

· Document data exchanged with external systems

· Identify scheduled jobs, batch processes and automated imports or exports

· Identify external file repository or shared storage dependencies

· Identify integrations that must remain operational during migration and cutover

· Document current hosting and application configuration relevant to migration

· Inventory routing, redirect and server configuration requirements

· Document shared storage, service endpoint and environment dependencies

· Identify scheduled tasks and background processes

· Document custom error handling and response behavior relevant to migration

· Identify configuration dependencies required to accurately interpret or extract legacy data

· Establish baseline counts for content, files, users and key records

· Identify records with missing required information or invalid relationships

· Identify formatting, encoding and content quality issues

· Identify broken file references and missing assets

· Create representative test records for each major content type

· Include edge cases requiring additional migration validation

· Define source validation criteria that can be compared against migration results

· Identify sensitive, confidential or regulated information within the legacy system

· Determine whether sensitive data should be migrated, excluded, archived or masked

· Identify credentials, secrets and other protected configuration information

· Ensure protected information is excluded from migration extracts

· Document how frequently content and data change within the legacy system

· Identify methods for determining records created or modified after an initial migration

· Define a process for identifying deleted or retired records where required

· Establish a content freeze or final incremental extraction process for production cutover

· Preserve a final read only backup of the legacy site, data and associated files

· Maintain required legacy systems until migration validation and reconciliation are complete

· Document the final source state used for production migration FALSE