How do you give estimates for Magento upgrade? [closed]

Question

I am interested to know how do you measure the needed time for Magento upgrade? I guess, that most of you had hard time to answer on the client's question: "How long it will take to upgrade my Magento store?"

Usually the client needs to hear just a number for e.g.: "It will take X hours and it will cost Y bucks."

The main idea behind the question is about the technical side and what do you check as developer to make your own calculations for Magento upgrades.

I created the next check list, just for my own calculations:

• Is the Magento core touched?
• Is the Magento DB schema touched?
• Do we have inconsistent data in the DB?
• How many custom extensions are installed in local and community code pool?
• Are the custom extension compatible with the latest version of Magento?
• Did the theme developer used local.xml file for the the layout directives, or just copied xml files from the base/default/layout to the layout directory of the custom theme?
• Do we have deprecated layout directives / block methods in the layout xml files?
• Have I developed this Magento shop?

Do you think, that I am missing something and if yes, would you like to share with me and the community your additional points for the check list?

Answer 1

out of topic really but divide the work at least to two portions:

1. upgrading magento code and database schema (disabling all customisations this usually takes 1 - 4hours dependant of the database size and your IO speed)
2. migrating theme files to new structure (if they are based on magento defaults)
3. upgrading extensions one by one (if they need upgrading)
4. agree on amount of testing
5. and sell a good development pipeline

and before giving a client quote you analyse the time that you need to spend on migrating themes by diffing your theme to upgraded base theme and layouts and also make a map of installed extensions and their versions and local overwrites.

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