Complete Microsoft Office 365 Migration Checklist – Thorough Guide for Pre & Post Office 365 Migration
Summary: This Microsoft Office 365 migration checklist cover the entire aspect of a successful data transfer, which ensures maximum data security and integrity if followed well. For the time being, this checklist will be updated to reflect the latest evolutions in Microsoft 365 suite and migration process. So, keep checking it!
With more & more organizations firmly involved in merger and acquisition activities, Office 365 tenant to tenant migration has become the essential component for companies to stay connected & for easy management. To talk about the best cloud platform, undoubtedly, Microsoft Office 365 remains at the top place.
Moreover, with the latest features added to Microsoft 365, existing Office 365 users are willing to upgrade their subscription plans. To avail of the benefits of the newly subscribed plan, data migration is mandatory. And, with a proper Office 365 migration checklist, this overwhelming task can be handled easily.
Anyways, the Office 365 data migration needs vary from organization to organization. Depending upon the size and complexity of the migration, proper project plans need to be crafted. In addition, when planning on O365 Mailbox Migration, there are a lot of things you need to take into account at the source and destination end.
Hence, while planning on the migration process, a 360-degree lookout is what you require for carrying out a successful migration.
Without further ado, let’s start with the first step of the checklist.
Table of Content
The Basic Things To Be Kept in Mind While Planning for Office 365 Migration Checklist
There are a few fundamental necessities of migration planning that you need to tick off.
- Draw the Blueprint of Requirement – Draft a well-prepared plan before migrating. Also, ask questions like how, when, and where the data needs to be moved. Thoroughly analyze your data and requirements, according to your: need to sort them. Check for redundant and unused content.
- Compose a Migration Strategy – Planning is an extremely important aspect of achieving a successful migration. So, stick to your plan and categorize the existing data according to your priority.
- Formulate Practical Time Frame – It is always good to know how much time you need to allocate for a particular migration. Also, it is impractical to expect that 500GB of data will be migrated in 10 min. So, be realistic and have a real idea to ensure a productive data transfer.
- Maintain Office 365 Pre-Migration – You can save a lot of time and effort if you resolve probable migration issues beforehand. Hence, go through the pre-migration checklist discussed later in this article.
- Mark Off Office 365 Post-Migration Checklist – Once the migration process is completed, make sure every account has been migrated to its desired destination. Also, there are other things you should consider in the post-Office 365 migration checklist. Refer to the post-migration section for the same.
Must Read: Distribution Group Migration to Office 365 Step By Step Explained
Now, let’s discuss the Office 365 pre and post-migration checklist in detail.
Microsoft Office 365 Pre-Migration Checklist That You Should Consider
- Proper Communication Needs to be Established Among Users
The most important aspects of migration are deciding the migration day, period, and resource management. Hence before beginning the migration process, every member of your organization should have detailed knowledge of the migration plan. Such as how it is going to be carried out, what could be the possible impacts they may face during migration, etc. - On-premise Inventory Should be Analyzed
You must break down basic elements and prepare the inventory. For that, make sure you have the below information:
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- Acquire all the names of user mailboxes (shared resources) along with their sizes and email addresses.
- Check the desired storage locations, client (such as browser, operating systems, and Office applications) versions, and configurations.
- Look over the internet connectivity, DNS hosts, proxy and firewall configuration, available bandwidth, configured DNS records, etc.
- Examining the Current Environment Before Migration
Having an idea about the present situation before migration is a good practice. So, check off the below list.
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- Inspect the methods for creating the accounts.
- Maintain a list of licenses required by user accounts.
- Make sure to glance at the backups/backup policies
- Check whether network capacity is suitable for migration or needs improvement.
- Provide basic training to end-users.
- Set authentication, and deploy Antivirus, Firewall, and Routers upgrade requirements for user accounts
- Making the List of Data to be Migrated
Prepare the data for migration and overlook the following.
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- Ensure and update the Active Directory
- Discard the unused user accounts.
- It is mandatory to match the UPN of the source and destination environments.
- Both offline and online archiving facilities are required in the future.
- Gear up Office 365 Accounts
Setting up the Office 365 account is the last step of the pre-migration checklist.
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- Make sure you have enough Office 365 subscriptions & licenses and purchase accordingly.
- Every single domain name needs to be verified.
- Put together all the security permissions, applications for use, etc.
- Do a test run of migration.
Check Off the Microsoft Office 365 Post-Migration Checklist
- Redirecting and Caching Email
After the completion of migration, you need to redirect the email accounts of users to Office 365. Also, check and confirm the status for each folder showing “This Folder Is Up To Date” or not. - Assigning Licenses
As you know without a license agreement the Office 365 account will be disabled after 30 days. So it is necessary to assign licenses to the mailboxes migrated in Office 365. - Enable Autodiscovery
To easily connect your mailboxes to Outlook email clients, set up the Autodiscover DNS records in Office 365. - Deactivate Source Environment
After completing the migration process, you can close down the old Exchange server.
However, before shutting it down, make sure you have achieved permanent migration and you don’t need it in the future.
Now that you have the pre-migration and post-migration checklist for your reference, it’s time to consider the most important stage of the Office 365 migration checklist i.e. deciding on the migration method.
Choosing The Right Method – A Crucial Part of the Microsoft Office 365 Migration Checklist
Even though you perfectly planned the whole process, if you don’t have the right tool to perform the migration then all this planning and preparation could go in vain.
So, if you ask what could be your option, then it’s better to go by the experts’ opinion. As per them, to carry out the complicated task of migration, taking the help of a professional tool like Migrator Wizard Office 365 Migration Tool would be a wiser choice.
Here are quick steps to perform the migration now!
5 Simple Steps After Office 365 Pre-Migration Checklist
- Step 1. Download and Launch the Software.
- Step 2. Select Required Mailbox Items & Apply Filter.
- Step 3. Login with Admin Credentials & Validate.
- Step 4. Create Mapping & Validate Permissions.
- Step 5. Click on Start Button.
Final Verdict
Moving the Office 365 mailbox to another account is an important decision an organization takes to add something new to its IT infrastructure to improve security and compliance needs. However, successfully executing this tedious process is the real challenge. That’s why this write-up focused on explaining the essential measures to consider while planning on O365 data migration through the Office 365 pre and post-migration checklist.