TL;DR

• Do not panic migrate. First figure out if the problem is your CMS or your training, workflows, and content chaos.
• Inventory everything. Screens, players, content types, data feeds, user roles, and integrations. You cannot migrate what you do not understand.
• Design the new world, then choose tools. Define goals, architecture, and permissions before you fall in love with vendor demos.
• Build clean, not identical. Use the migration to simplify channels, templates, and tags instead of copying old problems into a new UI.
• Run old and new in parallel. Pilot, test, and migrate in waves with clear rollback plans so black screens never hit the public.
• Finish with optimization, not “it works.” Fix workflows, train users, watch analytics, and keep improving once the new CMS is live.
• Bring in help if needed. An independent specialist can keep vendors honest and stop you from becoming full time migration support.

The uncomfortable truth: it is not always the software

A lot of teams hit a wall and decide “we need to switch CMS.” Sometimes that is true. Other times the honest answer is brutal: you never really learned how to use the system you already have.

I see this all the time. The rollout was rushed, training was an afterthought, and the people running digital signage already have two or three other jobs. No one documented workflows. No one set clear ownership. The CMS became the scapegoat for a pile of process and resourcing problems.

That does not mean your software is perfect. It does mean you should be honest about whether a new platform will actually fix anything if you repeat the same rushed implementation, light training, and “who owns this, exactly” patterns. Sometimes the right move is to reset how you use your existing CMS before you go shopping for a new one.