An increasing numbers of businesses are migrate over to Microsoft 365 each year. More and more businesses are looking to take advantage of the industry-leading productivity and collaboration capabilities, the enterprise security, and the vast family of products and services that Microsoft 365 can open them up to.
If your organisation is planning on migrating to Microsoft 365 as a means to optimize thier business processes, then it is of the utmost important to have an effective strategy in place. We discussed this with TechQuarters, an IT company and Microsoft partner that has been doing this type of work for over a decade. The managed IT services London businesses get from TechQuarters often involves them assisting with Microsoft 365 migrations, and they were able to give some valuable insight into it.
Microsoft 365 Migrations: 6 Important Steps
The following guide should give any business the fundamental knowledge they need to plan a successful migration to Microsoft 365. According to TechQuarters, these six steps have helped many of their customers transform their organisation.
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Pre-Plan Your Migration
The first thing for any business looking to migrate to do is to arrange a meeting involving all stakeholders. A Microsoft 365 migration will impact every single person involved in the company; thus, it is a very important discussion to have as an organisation. Furthermore, prior to migrating, a comprehensive analysis of the organisation’s current infrastructure should be performed, taking into account the following factors:
- How many users and how much data will be migrated.
- Whether the data will be migrated to OneDrive or SharePoint (or both)
- How sharing permissions, file versions, metadata, links, etc, will be migrated.
- Converting files into Microsoft-specific files
- Planning the timeline for the Microsoft 365 migration.
- Use Microsoft Migration Manager
When performing a Microsoft 365 migration, you will have a lot of data being moved over to the new infrastructure. This means that a reliable migration tool will be necessary. TechQuarters recommends the Microsoft Migration Manager tool for this.
- Understand the Capabilities of M365
Every cloud environment and infrastructure has different capabilities, including limitations. It is important to have a very clear understanding of the capabilities of Microsoft 365, particularly OneDrive and SharePoint. It would be unfortunate to run into complications in the middle of a migration, simply you didn’t do the necessary research. It may be that an organisation requires additional tools and systems on hand to overcome any potential limitations, or differences between their old systems and Microsoft 365.
- Setup Daily Migration Reports
Once the Microsoft 365 migration is actually in progress, it is very important to follow the progress carefully. This is why having daily migration reporting in place is a very good idea. As we mentioned earlier, a Microsoft 365 migration is something that will affect all employees and stakeholders in a business, and laying out a plan and timeline is necessary. Setting up daily progress reports on the migration is the most effective way of ensuring it is progressing according to the timeline.
- Arrange User Onboarding
Yet another thing to think about in accordance with the pre-migration plan and timeline is the user onboarding process. Whomever is involved with the Micorsoft 365 migration process must organize training sessions for the organisation’s staff. This is to ensure that before they are onboarded to the new platforms, they will be well educated and ready to use them efficiently. Not preparing staff prior to onboarding will simply protract the process, and it will take longer for the business to even return to their original operational efficiency, let alone improve it with the new tools.
- Consider Working With a Migration Partner
Finally, before a business undergoes migration, they should seriously consider partnering with an IT professional that has experience with this type of work. TechQuarters have provided IT support in Manchester, Birmingham, London, and many other parts of the UK; much of their work involves guiding business through the process of migration. It is highly advisable to work with an experienced migration partner, because it will make the process so much quicker and easier.
