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Migration from Previous System

The Old System

Our first documentation portal was built by Markus Wolf as a custom in-house solution. It successfully proved the value of unified documentation, showing teams the benefits of a centralized, searchable docs platform.

Why We're Switching to MkDocs

While the original system served us well as a proof of concept, maintaining a custom solution long-term doesn't scale. We identified several limitations:

  • Limited search capabilities - Search wasn't as robust as teams needed
  • Missing modern features - No dark mode, poor table of contents, limited navigation
  • Maintenance burden - Custom code requires ongoing development and maintenance
  • No ecosystem - Couldn't leverage community plugins and improvements

What's Better in MkDocs

MkDocs gives us professional-grade documentation features out of the box:

  • Powerful search - Fast, comprehensive full-text search across all docs
  • Modern UI/UX - Dark mode, responsive design, clean navigation
  • Excellent TOC - Automatic table of contents with in-page navigation
  • Tag aggregation - Organize and discover content by tags
  • Plugin ecosystem - Leverage community plugins and extensions
  • Active maintenance - Benefit from ongoing open-source development

Get Your Docs on the New Platform

For Repository Owners

If you want your documentation to appear on this site, install the docs-builder GitHub App to your organization:

  1. Go to https://github.com/apps/docs-builder-app
  2. Click "Configure" next to the docs-builder app (or install it if not listed)
  3. Grant access to repositories with /docs folders

That's it! Your docs will be automatically picked up and aggregated into the unified site.

For Content Authors

Good news: Nothing changes for you!

  • Keep writing Markdown in your repository's /docs folder
  • Commit to your default branch as usual
  • The new system automatically pulls and publishes your changes

The content format is compatible—if you were already using Markdown, your existing docs will work without modification.

Migration Timeline

We're running both systems in parallel during the transition:

  • Old system: https://docs.statista.dev (current)
  • New system: https://docs.stage.sso.statista.com (testing)

Once all organizations have migrated and we've verified everything works, we'll:

  1. Switch the new system to the docs.statista.dev domain
  2. Decommission the old infrastructure

Questions?

Reach out to Axel Tetzlaff or the UAS team if you need help with the migration.

Last updated: March 31, 2026 at 11:02
By: Axel Tetzlaff