5 Easy Steps to a Successful SharePoint Online Migration

Transcription

1 5 Easy Steps to a Successful SharePoint Online Migration This ebook explores major considerations you need to take into account when you migrate your organization to SharePoint Online as part of a move to Office 365. The ebook deals specifically with the consequences related to new SharePoint features and functions, above and beyond the larger decision to move to the Office 365 cloud.. Get started 1

2 Do you need to migrate? Migrating to Office 365 and SharePoint Online is not the kind of decision you make easily, and to ensure the move is a success you have to answer questions about your organization s needs. The latest version of the platform has great new features, yet you shouldn t be distracted by the bells and whistles. You need to consider your organization s requirements and whether the new features make the move worthwhile. What to consider 2

3 What to consider Migrating to Office 365 and SharePoint Online can have a profound impact on your organization s IT solutions, so you need to consider how you will adapt to the changes. Migrating from SharePoint 2007 Migration impact on other IT solutions A. User experience If you are migrating from SharePoint 2007 or lower, remember that you will have to deal with significant differences in the user experience that will affect your user adoption process. B. Adoption Migrating from SharePoint 2007 or lower will probably require training and a potentially longer adjustment period. C. Third Party products How will third party product dependencies migrate and integrate with SharePoint Online? D. Functionality and compatibility Some data and migration systems only offer full functionality when paired with certain browsers. Browser compatibility can be both costly and challenging to maintain over time when not upgraded. 3

4 What are you actually migrating? Once you have decided your business needs to migrate, you need to perform an inventory of the data your organization holds and decide what you actually need to migrate. All potential data sources must be identified and mapped; failure to do so risks losing valuable information and documents. What to consider 4

5 What to consider The scope of a migration project is usually defined by the types of content and its volume and the type of access required. The best way to find out what needs to be migrated is to communicate with internal stakeholders. When meeting with stakeholders, ask the following questions: A. Is it necessary to migrate every single document or are some no longer required? B. Do we need to bring all versions of a document across, or only the latest versions? E. Do we understand what we are migrating? There are tools to help us analyze file shares in order to get a feel for the sizes and types of documents. F. File shares may contain programming scripts, database files, large zip files, huge bitmaps and videos, as well as corrupt files. Can we leave some of these behind? C. What are the retrieval patterns for those documents? If documents are only accessed during the first 6 months following creation, do we only migrate the latest 6 months and archive the rest? D. Duplicates often exist. Do we need those too? 5

6 Do you have a clear set of requirements? Moving to SharePoint Online provides a great opportunity to reorganize and restructure data, and it is therefore essential to have a clear set of requirements to support both current and longer term needs. What to consider 6

7 What to consider Plan how old data will be mapped onto the new SharePoint system. Legacy systems often have a large number of free text fields and unmanaged folder structures. Migration offers a golden opportunity to ensure the new structure is better and more effective. This will involve setting up governance policies for how documents are stored and defining new metadata and taxonomy. To ensure success, you should do the following: A. Define the destination format, metadata and policies in SharePoint. B. Understand the structure of the source system from which you are migrating. C. Identify where data may be unclean or missing and define an approach to address this. D. Map old metadata fields to the new metadata fields omitting some, introducing new ones as needed and providing translation tables. 7

8 Realistic expectations Migration projects are often far more time and resource-intensive, as well as energy draining than initially believed. Many organizations believe migrations can be achieved in a matter of days, yet these processes almost always take much longer. Underestimating the complexity of a migration project entails many risks whether it s delaying the launch date or going live without adequate content. What to consider 8

9 What to consider If you have properly mapped your organization s data, you should have a good idea of the number of documents you expect to migrate. The easiest way to estimate how long this will take is to carry out trial runs and time them. A. Time estimate After testing, you should have a good idea of how long it would take to carry out the migration of a single document, which could look something like this: 0.5 Sec. to export a document from the legacy system 1 Sec. to upload a document to SharePoint Number of documents B. Resources Evaluate what will be required in terms of additional hardware, software, temporary disk space, external consultants, and internal resources. C. Potential risks Understand potential risks and identify the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in the project. 9

10 Your post migrationplan Migrating to SharePoint Online doesn t stop once the last document has been transferred from your legacy system. Your organization s SharePoint project is never really finished; rather it is a long term venture that requires constant monitoring and investment. You need to be responsive to changes within your organization, to monitor how people are using the site and plan ahead. What to consider 10

11 What to consider Taking ownership of SharePoint Online involves: A. Governance Set rules for the correct use of the platform, including operational and maintenance guidelines. Earlier versions of SharePoint required long and dry technical documents, but SharePoint Online offers collaborative social features such as Enterprise Wikis and tags that facilitate compliance. You also need to prepare for site and permissions management and policies for social features like Yammer, rating and tagging. B. Support You need to prepare how your IT department will provide support to end users and plan for issue escalation. C. Adoption Getting people to use any new platform is never easy. So offer users tools and workflows that are intuitive and answer the business users specific needs. Reducing the number of context switches and screens that people need to traverse to do simple operations like uploading a document or previewing a SharePoint document is critical to ensuring adoption. D. Training SharePoint Online is fairly intuitive and users will soon be uploading their own content. However, there is a learning curve and training is required for more advanced features such as workflow reminders, content routing rules and search in order to allow users to get the most out of the platform. 11

12 It's an ongoing process Planning your data strategy begins well before you launch a migration project and continues long after you successfully move your data over to SharePoint Online. It s an ongoing process and one that requires you to plan and manage policies and processes. Taking the time to prepare will help you determine the best ways to gather the content, organize the chaos, and bring data to your newly organized SharePoint structure. Summing up key best practices: Assess third party compatibility and product dependencies. Do not waste resources migrating content that fails to meet business needs. Identify data sources. Conduct trial runs to determine the scope and timeframe of the project. Analyze what needs to be moved: types of content, volume, and retrieval patterns. Post migration, confirm that your SharePoint sites and content meet all of the standards defined in your governance plan. Define the new system requirements format, metadata and policies. 12

13 About harmon.ie harmon.ie empowers the Digital Workplace by delivering a single-screen experience for all your Microsoft collaboration tools, such as Office 365, SharePoint, Yammer, Skype for Business, and OneDrive for Business. An established global company, harmon.ie helps millions of enterprise users realize business value from their Office 365 and SharePoint investments. Learn more 13