In this, the second of a three-part blog series on SharePoint migration, we turn our attention to planning a successful migration. (Part one focused on why you should migrate to SharePoint Online). Most migrations to SharePoint Online are from an older, on-premises, version of SharePoint or from a legacy system. A thorough, well-thought-out plan is essential to success.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish”
He didn’t know SharePoint, but the writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry recognised the importance of a good plan. And when it comes to SharePoint migration, a comprehensive plan is essential to a smooth and successful transition.
There are six key aspects to a sound migration plan, and we’ll look at each in turn. Where are you starting from, how you plan to reach your destination, preparation, execution, post-migration checks, and ongoing operational activities.
A good partner will guide you through much of this, and we’ll look at the benefits of working with a partner in the final part of this blog series. But the reason you’re reading this may be to decide ‘is this something we fancy doing ourselves?’, so let’s look at what’s involved.
1. Current State Assessment
Before you can do anything else, you need to have a clear understanding of your starting point and what you’re trying to achieve.
Create an inventory of all content, including files, documents, sites, and libraries. Analyse how content is currently used and identify all critical and high-use data. Also identify redundant, obsolete, and trivial (often shortened to ROT) data for pre-migration disposal.
Be clear what you need to achieve for the project to be successful: this is likely to be much broader than IT’s needs. Understand how the business’ objectives and goals might affect the migration. Gather input from key stakeholders so you can address their needs and concerns. It may be that there’s a need to enrich internal communications, or a desire to automate manual workflows, which may impact the nature of your implementation. You should also identify your compliance, security, and governance requirements.
Very often this stage will expose the need to overhaul a dated and no longer fit for purpose Information Architecture (IA). We touched on this in our 4 Ways to Sort Your SharePoint Data Out blog and it can be a significant undertaking in its own right.
2. Develop Your Migration Strategy
Decide whether you favour migrating everything all at once, the ‘Big Bang’ approach, or whether you’d prefer a phased, incremental approach. This may be influenced by factors identified during the current state assessment.
You’ll need to use a migration tool and your choice will depend on the specific needs and complexities of your project. Microsoft’s free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) is designed for SharePoint Server 2010/2013/2016/2019 and file share to SharePoint Online migrations. But unless your requirements are relatively straightforward, you are likely to benefit from the more advanced capabilities found in third-party tools. An online search is likely to reveal ShareGate Desktop, AvePoint Migration Platform, and Metalogix Content Matrix amongst others.
Your migration plan should include a detailed timeline, with key milestones and deadlines, identifying any potential risks and how they should be addressed. This in turn will enable you to determine and allocate the human and financial resources required.
3. Prepare for Migration
Your move to SharePoint Online will, of course, affect all your IT users so it’s important they know what’s happening. Communicate what’s going to happen, why, when, how it will benefit them, and what they need to do differently. Collaborate with your internal comms team to ensure an effective multi-point communication plan and support this with user training, resources, and support.
Set-up and configure your new SharePoint environment along with permissions and access controls. We mentioned the need to have good controls in place for Microsoft Copilot in our 4 Ways to Sort Your SharePoint Data Out blog. Plus, validate your SharePoint Online environment to ensure it’s ready for migration.
If it wasn’t done during your stage one assessment, you’ll now need to remove or archive ROT data. Plus, organise existing data into structures that are aligned to your SharePoint Online IA, ready for migration.
4. Execute the Migration
It’s always wise to run a pilot migration before a full migration. Conduct a test run with a small subset of data to test the process and validate the accuracy and completeness of the migrated data. If necessary, make adjustments and when everything’s working as planned, you’re ready for the best part: full migration.
Your migration tool will do the heavy lifting for you, transferring all data from its source location to your new SharePoint Online environment. But monitor carefully for any errors or issues, and continuously validate the integrity and completeness of the migrated data.
5. Post-Migration Checks
Verify that all content is accessible in SharePoint Online and test key functionalities and workflows to ensure they all work correctly. Review performance metrics and invite employee feedback to help you to optimise the environment. This will also help to see if further training or support is necessary to drive employee adoption.
6. Operational Management
One of the advantages of SharePoint Online is that it doesn’t require a huge amount of operational monitoring and management: the platform is managed for you and updates are automatic. However, there are backup and recovery limitations and so this may need managing through one of the third-party solutions tailored to SharePoint Online.
But you will need to have a comprehensive approach to governance and data hygiene. Regularly reviewing data classification, access control, and retention policies, and monitoring compliance and security measures.
SharePoint isn’t a static technology and its role within your Microsoft infrastructure is constantly evolving, just as your organisation and its needs are. So, with continuous improvement in mind you should regularly review how it’s being used: does the interface need improving to better meet employee expectations, should additional workflows be automated, etc?
The devil’s in the detail
These six steps provide the basis of a sound migration plan, but there’s a limit to what we can cover in a single blog. As with any project, the devil’s in the detail. So, in the third and final part of this blog series, we look at some common pitfalls and whether it’s worth using a specialist?
Start your migration to SharePoint Online
Book a no-obligation introduction with our SharePoint experts
