# Academy for Teachers

The Academy for Teachers site needed to move to a new major version of its CMS without going offline, get a better way to drop video into an article, and bring in content faster.

Year: 2024
Stack: Next.js, Vercel, Sanity

## 01 / The problem

The Academy for Teachers site runs on Next.js and Sanity. The whole thing needed to move to a new major version of Sanity without the live site ever going dark. On top of that, editors needed a better way to add video inside an article, and a faster way to bring content in.

## 02 / What I built

- **A live migration with no gap** The CMS moved from an old major version to a new one, and the site never went dark during the move.
- **Video, right inside an article** A custom block for the rich text editor, so an editor drops a video in like any other block.
- **Content brought in by the batch** Import scripts move content in, instead of typing it in by hand one piece at a time.

## 03 / Key decisions

### 1. The migration ran with zero downtime

This took more upfront planning, but the live site never went dark during the move.

### 2. Video became a real content block

Instead of a plain embed link, video is a block type in the editor, so it can sit inline like any other content.

### 3. Bulk import ran through scripts, not hand entry

This traded some script writing time for a lot of saved manual work.

## 04 / Outcome

The Academy for Teachers site runs on the new version of Sanity today, with video blocks and a faster way to bring content in.

It went through the whole move without a single minute of downtime.

[See academyforteachers.org](https://www.academyforteachers.org/)