5 Effective Tips for A Successful SharePoint Migration

Are you on the verge of SharePoint migration again? With SharePoint 2019 out and the increased popularity of Office 365, we are seeing more and more companies migrating to SharePoint or its latest release. However, SharePoint migration is not as easy as it sounds; rather, it is a full-time, technical process which requires skills and expertise. The best that is advisable is to partner with any SharePoint migration expert such as Code Creators (CCI). But still, there are a few things you should be prepared. So, to help you prepare for the next time, we have got you 5 most effective SharePoint migration tips that will never let you down.

1. Build an Active Inventory of What You Already Have Before Your SharePoint Migration

First of all, keep this in mind that this step is unavoidable. It is always appreciated by the SharePoint experts to maintain an active inventory of everything, to uphold and manage your SharePoint Governance rules. The reason for maintaining an active inventory is obvious. It makes you SharePoint migration process quicker and simpler. It helps us identifying what actions will be needed to run on them for a successful migration. Remember that your inventory should have the maximum information possible for migration while avoiding any useless information at the same time. For instance, information like ‘Does it contain Page Layouts, Master Pages etc. is essential and used and tends to impact your migration process. If you are wondering how you can build inventory yourself or with the help of an expert, then consult the SharePoint experts at CCI to make your migration process smooth and hassle-free.

2. Don’t Forget to Check for Active SharePoint Workflows Before Migration

This one is a little tricky. When undertaking a SharePoint migration, our fundamental objective is to make it as seamless as possible for the users, while keeping everything as it is as possible. But, the problem is that keeping the actual state of a running workflow is very difficult until some crazy things or editing are done directly in the database. However, another bigger challenge is that doing such editing can also make you fall within the unsupported scenario with Microsoft. Because migrating active workflows may cause workflows (already created) losing their reference with their definition post migration. What you can do to overcome this problem is to look for all the SharePoint Workflows that are ‘In Progress’ and either wait for their completion or cancel them before migration. Once done, you can now migrate successfully. Now combine this tip with the previous one and then prioritize and plan.

3. Map-Out What’s New & What No Longer Exists

Generally, the fundamental aim of SharePoint migration is to get benefitted by the new features that the platform could potentially bring to our table. There is a wide range of features offered by SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019 that makes it worth switching to the latest versions. However, you must always keep your information organized in order to classify your content smartly. This can be simply achieved by mapping out the new features against the features that no longer exist, and what our business need at that particular time. Hence, for features that no longer exists with the older version, but your business needs it; and if you can find it with the latest version, then its worthy to migrate.

4. Remove, Migrate & Rebuild (RMR) Strategy

RMR strategy is actually not any popular strategy, but this is something that we have developed with our long-term experience in SharePoint development and SharePoint migration services. RMR strategy is all about preparing, planning and drafting a roadmap for your SharePoint migration. In three short steps, i.e. Remove, Migrate and Rebuild, this strategy makes your migration process simpler. While using RMR strategy, what you do is you pull out your entire inventory that you have built, and then assign one of these three actions, i.e. Remove, Migrate and Rebuild to each of workflow or task in the summary view. In this way, you will be able to get a clear and concise picture of what you are required to do when you look at your RMR plan. This will also enable you to assign points to each these sites, while helping you to develop a sorted roadmap about how much you can achieve in a certain period of time, for instance, in 1-month, based on the points system.

 

5. Develop an Effective Communication Plan for Successful SharePoint Migration

What could be worse than coming to work and finding everything changed? But what could be more annoying to you is when you find that it’s you who are responsible for changing the routine everyone was enjoying. After SharePoint migration, everything will look different and in most of the cases work differently too. This could be frustrating when you don’t develop an effective communication plan. Without a well-built and effective communication plan, your entire, well-planned SharePoint migration could become a total failure. Effective communication is crucial, yet it is very simple to be developed. The key to the success of SharePoint migration is constant communication throughout the process as soon as they take place. Knowing about the impact that SharePoint migration could bring to their jobs, along with the complete access to training will greatly encourage employees to adopt the changes.

Using SharePoint tools could be of great help while migrating. What’s even better is to partner with a SharePoint expert such as Code Creators. Code Creators is the leading provider of SharePoint migration services – known for providing reliable services to its clients all across the globe.