Adobe Commerce, engineered for education at scale.
Penn State Extension brings the university's research to people in all 67 Pennsylvania counties through courses, webinars, workshops, and publications. IWD migrated them to Adobe Commerce and has engineered the platform since, with Salesforce, single sign-on, faceted search, and a custom education-credits model.
Penn State Extension
Penn State Extension is the university's outreach arm, turning research into practical education for farmers, families, businesses, and communities in every Pennsylvania county. It sells courses, webinars, workshops, and publications alongside a deep library of free content, all on a multi-store Adobe Commerce platform IWD migrated and has engineered over an eight-year partnership.
Content, courses, and credits don't fit a standard Magento install.
So we engineered the layer that does.
One platform, every format
Free content, paid publications, courses, webinars, and workshops, unified under one storefront.
Enrollment that works
Checkout and registration for individuals and group sign-ups alike, with assisted enrollment.
Search across thousands
Relevant results across thousands of articles, courses, and webinars, filtered by format.
One Penn State identity
Single sign-on and a unified profile across the Penn State ecosystem.
A clean migration
Off end-of-life Magento 1 onto Adobe Commerce Cloud, with SEO and rankings preserved.
Room to grow
More stores, more formats, and new commerce models like education credits over time.
Eight years of building. And still going.
When a catalog this large outgrows off-the-shelf Magento, you build the layer that carries it.
Their ability to implement solid technical solutions, attention to quality assurance, and top-notch client support are why we keep partnering with IWD Agency.
Campus commerce, on one platform.
CRM, search, payments, identity, courses, and reporting. Wired straight into Adobe Commerce, not bolted on.
LearningEducation Credits EngineCustom credit currency, redemption, and sharing- ReportingPurchase Order ReportCustom admin PO report with CSV export
CRMSalesforceSales Cloud and Marketing Cloud sync
PaymentsAuthorize.Net CIMTokenized card storage
SearchSmile ElasticSuiteElasticsearch relevance and merchandising
CoursesOpen edXOnline course and learning delivery- IdentitySingle Sign-OnPenn State identity plus social login
SEOMageworx SEORedirects, sitemaps, metadata
AddressGoogle Address APIsValidation and autocomplete
Built to keep growing.
Penn State Extension didn't replatform and start over. The same Adobe Commerce build keeps gaining capabilities, shipped without breaking what came before.
- Phase 01Migration to Adobe Commerce
Off end-of-life Magento 1 onto Adobe Commerce Cloud. Catalog, customers, order history, and SEO preserved, validated across roughly 110 regression scenarios.
- Phase 02Identity + CRM
Penn State single sign-on, social login, and a bidirectional Salesforce sync into Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud. One unified learner profile.
- Phase 03Search + enrollment
Smile ElasticSuite relevance, education-format faceting, Open edX course and webinar handling, address validation, and staff-assisted enrollment.
- Phase 04New commerce models
Education-credits engine, purchase-order reporting, 67-county office directory, and an ongoing AI search-optimization program. Still evolving today.
Built for how people learn and buy.
Extension doesn't sell ordinary products. Courses, webinars, publications, and pre-purchased education credits each behave differently. The platform is engineered around how learners and institutions actually buy.
- Migrated, not patched. Off end-of-life Magento 1 onto Adobe Commerce Cloud, with catalog, orders, and SEO preserved.
- One learner identity. Single sign-on and a bidirectional Salesforce sync make the profile a single source of truth.
- Education-native commerce. Courses, webinars, and an education-credits model handled as first-class products.
Less friction,
more enrollments.
What changed day to day for Penn State Extension's learners, team, and institutional buyers.
Get this for your platformEnrollment that just works
Individual and group sign-ups, inline address validation, and a staff-assisted path. Learners finish the first time instead of abandoning a broken form.
Custom builds. Engineered for education.
Off-the-shelf Magento couldn't carry a catalog this complex. These are the modules we built from scratch and have maintained across every Adobe Commerce release.
PlatformMagento 1 to Adobe Commerce Migration
What it doesProducts, customers, and orders moved off end-of-life Magento 1 onto Adobe Commerce Cloud, validated across roughly 110 regression scenarios covering homepage, category, product, cart, search, and account flows.
Why from scratchThe legacy platform was past end-of-life. Catalog, customers, order history, and SEO all had to survive the move to a modern, supported foundation.
PaymentsAuthorize.Net CIM Payments
What it doesAuthorize.Net Customer Information Manager for tokenized card storage and PCI-compliant repeat purchasing.
Why from scratchReturning learners re-enroll often. Tokenized storage removes checkout friction without taking on card-data liability.
PaymentsAdmin-as-Customer Payments
What it doesLets Extension staff place and pay for an order on a learner's behalf directly from the admin.
Why from scratchPhone and assisted enrollments are common in an education setting, so staff needed a first-class way to transact for a learner.
IdentitySingle Sign-On
What it doesPenn State identity single sign-on. Users authenticate once and carry that session across the ecosystem.
Why from scratchLearners move between Extension and other Penn State systems. One identity removes repeated logins and unifies the account.
IdentitySocial Sign-On & Connections
What it doesSocial login and account linking to reduce registration friction for new learners.
Why from scratchA large share of visitors are first-time, anonymous users. Social sign-on lowers the barrier to creating an account and enrolling.
CRMSalesforce Integration
What it doesBidirectional sync of customers, orders, and products into Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
Why from scratchEnrollment, CRM, and marketing data were fragmented. The Salesforce connection made the learner profile a single source of truth.
SearchSmile ElasticSuite Search
What it doesElasticsearch-powered site search and merchandising with relevant results across thousands of articles, courses, and webinars.
Why from scratchNative Magento search couldn't handle a catalog this large. Fast, relevant discovery directly drives enrollment.
SearchEducation Format Filter
What it doesFaceted filtering by education format: article, online course, webinar, workshop, or publication.
Why from scratchExtension sells the same topic in many formats. Format filtering lets learners choose how they want to learn.
LearningOnline Courses & Webinars
What it doesCustom course and webinar product types tied to Open edX, with cart-level registration and access-link key handling for webinars.
Why from scratchCourses and webinars need registration data, access links, and an LMS handoff that off-the-shelf Magento does not provide.
ContentCounty Offices Directory
What it doesDirectory of all 67 Pennsylvania county offices with dedicated detail pages for each location.
Why from scratchExtension is a statewide, county-based network. The site maps that structure so people find and connect with their local office.
MarketingNewsletter Subscriber Preferences
What it doesSelf-service interest and communication-preference management that feeds Marketing Cloud opt-ins.
Why from scratchLearners want control over what they hear about. Preference management keeps subscriptions compliant and relevant.
UXMega-Menu & Content Hubs
What it doesA custom mega-navigation and content-hub layout organizing free content, publications, courses, and events by topic.
Why from scratchA catalog this broad needs navigation that exposes depth without overwhelming. The mega-menu maps the topic hubs Extension is built around.
CheckoutAddress Validation & Autocomplete
What it doesGoogle-API-backed address validation and type-ahead autocomplete at checkout and in course registration forms. Extended to validate billing addresses and bypass non-US addresses for digital-only buyers.
Why from scratchBad addresses break fulfillment and reporting. Inline validation cuts errors at the point of entry, covering gaps native Magento misses.
ReportingAdvanced & Purchase-Order Reporting
What it doesAdobe Commerce Advanced Reporting across all stores, plus a custom admin Purchase Order report with order number, date, payment method, PO number, line items, totals, and CSV export.
Why from scratchInstitutional buyers pay by purchase order. Finance needed clean reporting on those transactions that native reports could not produce.
CommerceEducation Credits Commerce
What it doesCustom credit-based purchasing: organizations and individuals buy redeemable credits in tiers, pay with credits or a credit-plus-card split, share credits with colleagues, and track balance and history. Full storefront, admin, email, and API support.
Why from scratchOrganizations wanted to pre-purchase training in bulk and distribute it. This required a new currency, redemption and sharing flows, and admin reporting built from scratch.
DiscoveryAI Search Optimization
What it doesSemantic HTML and schema markup, llms.txt implementation, robots rules for AI bots, and validation against AI overviews and assistant browsing.
Why from scratchDiscovery is shifting to AI answer engines. Structuring content so assistants can find and cite it protects Extension's reach as search evolves.
Let's build your education commerce platform the right way.
We engineer Adobe Commerce for universities, publishers, and content-led businesses. And we stay for the long run. Tell us what you're up against.