Perform an extensive discovery of the source M365 tenant and data usage.
Knowing exactly what you are migrating, where it all is and how it all fits together is the first step in a successful migration. This can including noting important things such as:
- What workloads and M365 licences are in use?
- How many of each workload type are in scope of migration e.g. User mailboxes, SharePoint document libraries, Teams?
- Is there any legal hold or archived data that needs to be migrated?
- Are there any workflows that are critical to the business to be mindful of?
- What external sharing is required post migration (if any)?
Prepare the destination M365 tenant environment.
Knowing everything about where the data is coming from is half the battle, the other half is preparing where it’s going to.
- Provision necessary destination objects and associated licences.
- Compare policy settings (e.g. retention policies) and plan accordingly.
- Check for user name conflicts or similar.
- Review Teams/SharePoint sites and decide to merge or keep the data separate.
Agree on limitations and expectations.
Before a migration begins, it’s important to agree on what’s to be expected. Areas of discussion should include:
- Is it the speed of the migration or the user experience that will define project success?
- Understand what data can and cannot be migrated using available tools such as CloudM.
- Understand the cost, time and effort required to complete the migration in agreed timeframes.
- What project metrics are important?
Understand what additional projects are scheduled.
Be aware of anything that may impact the migration of M365 data e.g. desktop refresh or AD migration.
Plan for problems.
Migrations are complex, so make sure additional time is added to timelines for unexpected events and clean up at the end of the migration.
- Build in project time to perform a pilot phase to ensure the migration approach and experience is as expected.
- Think about the user experience and plan communications accordingly.
- Plan for contingency. You never know what will happen.
Understand your limitations.
If planning out a migration makes you realise that it’s perhaps a little above your head, you don’t have the time to do it, or you simply don’t want the stress of it all, then make use of a Serviced Migration and let us take care of it all for you.