SharePoint Migration Quick Guide Best Practices for A Seamless Migration Process

Many businesses today are embracing a remote workforce. The rise of the whole new norm has compelled businessmen to think outside the box when it comes to letting their staff operate without the assistance of traditional office tools.

While file servers and on-premise file shares were common in the past, the cloud environment has proposed a novel method of workplace collaboration. Remote employees can now have data access and file sharing without having to connect to the workplace network – thanks to new collaboration tools.

One of the most dynamic business platforms in Microsoft Office 365 Suite is SharePoint Online which offers all of these cloud benefits and much more. SharePoint Cloud or SharePoint online has successfully established a whole new universe of remote collaboration by empowering teamwork with collaborative features, pushing for enhanced collaboration with intranet functionalities, and offering security, accessibility, and control to critical information with governance regulations.

However, you may already be aware of all of this. Indeed, you may have considered making the shift to the platform. It’s presumably why you’re reading this blog post – you’ve made your decision and are now looking for a roadmap to assure your seamless migration success.

Let’s start with some important questions before moving on.

Ask Yourself – Are You Ready to Migrate?

Migrating to a new platform isn’t something that happens every day, it’s understandable if you’re unsure of how to approach this significant change.  It’s vital that it comes out successful as you will be creating your new work system in completely new settings.

It is then critical that downtime is kept to a bare minimum and that no critical data is compromised, lost, or erased. You’ll be dealing with all of the documents and files, and other data that your employees utilize on a daily basis, and they’re all vital to your company’s survival.

However, there are other elements that can influence the success of your SharePoint Online migration process. Understanding file size, network architecture, migration time, and controlling mechanism will be critical to a seamless and successful migration.

Let’s get started on your migration planning. For a successful SharePoint Online migration, keep these six things in mind:

1. Examine Your Source & Make Appropriate Plans

Considering your present environment, whether it’s file servers, third-party storage solutions, or third-party cloud storage apps, will help you better understand your data, which will help you plan your SharePoint migration more wisely.

Before migration, you need to know where your data is, whether you will require it in the future, who is using it, and whether it is very confidential or sensitive. Furthermore, taking into account the path length and file name will also help you better prepare your data for your new SharePoint cloud environment.

You may plan appropriate workflows and data structures to help your end users have a great experience by analyzing how your users have been consuming your information from the data source.

Then, depending on your findings, determine your priority. When planning, you should not only think about the best migration strategy but also about the best tool to use. Because not every tool can assist you with your migration requirements, utilizing the most comprehensive tool will be advantageous to your success.

2. Select Your Package Size Wisely

Choosing the right ‘package’ is one of the most crucial tasks in SharePoint Online migration. It’s not a good idea to move large amounts of data all at once because it will result in harmful throttling. Small packages, on the other hand, will slow down your transfer.

Finding the perfect size of content to migrate and prioritizing particular sorts of files will be critical. To boost throughput, Microsoft suggests bundling at least 250 files per transfer. A minimum of 100 MB and no more than 250 MB for each package is suggested and the ideal size. Bear in mind that larger files transfer faster than smaller ones. List items and objects also transfer slower than files.

3. Prepare Your Destination For SharePoint Migration

Make sure your destination is ready before you migrate. If you classify your data before migration and use the governance tools that are officially recommended by Microsoft 365; then your data will be securely controlled, your information will be properly protected, and you will be able to manage risks from the beginning.

As a result, you will need to develop and execute your governance plan ahead of time if you want to get the most out of the controls in SharePoint Online.

4. Make A Change Management Investment

Taking the time to think about change management can help you better prepare for your migration destination. It will not only increase adoption but also help to optimize your business operations.

While thinking about your existing operations and workflows is important throughout the research and planning phases; you should also use the change and the innovations that come alongside to enrich your system. Find a happy medium between exploiting tried-and-true systems and creating new ones.

SharePoint Online, fortunately, includes a number of tools to assist you in this endeavor. It can also be coupled with other Microsoft 365 platforms, which will provide you with a plethora of chances to optimize your productivity, so explore that too!

5. Conduct Pilot Studies

Other factors may alter the end performance of your plan, no matter how good you think it is. Pilot runs will guarantee that any gaps in plans may be identified and addressed prior to the actual migration. Finding data sets that closely resemble your wave migration will be essential in determining the plan’s effectiveness.

6. Plan & Execute The Migration Process Accordingly

It’s preferable to migrate during off-peak hours, which are usually weekends and nights in any region’s time zone, to get the optimal output. There are high chances of throttling occurring if you attempt to move to SharePoint Online during busy hours. Furthermore, Microsoft recommends that you do not submit over 5,000 migration requests in a single attempt; as this will cause your migration to be hampered. Finally, before you upload a second request, make sure you finish your earlier migration attempt.

Code Creator Inc.

SharePoint Migration Process is a tedious and challenging task and it requires specialized skills and technical knowledge. Code Creators Inc. is a leading SharePoint migration company providing reliable SharePoint solutions to its diverse business clients all across the world. So, if you are also planning to migrate to the latest SharePoint version or want to migrate from SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online, then our professional team of SharePoint experts can guide you through and ensure making your SharePoint migration process effortless and cost-effective. Click here to connect.