SharePoint Online Migration Checklist by SharePoint Experts

As the business world continues to evolve every day, organizations encounter new challenges. One of the most critical of them is data transfer during acquisition, mergers, restructuring, etc. So if your organization is one of those geared toward shifting to a SharePoint Online system, you need a comprehensive SharePoint Online migration checklist. Having a planned guideline in place is a no-brainer, especially for such a crucial task. So as industry experts, we add our expertise and present the complete SharePoint Online migration project plan.

6 Phases of SharePoint Online Migration Checklist

After performing a lot of research and several years of experience, we have prepared this checklist. By using this checklist a tech user can also perform SharePoint tenant to tenant migration. So, below are the most significant phases for a successful SharePoint migration checklist.

Phase 1. Note Down the Data Points of Your SharePoint Environment

Apart from sites, SharePoint is host to many other different data types. So before a migration, a proper list must be made to avoid last-minute confusion. A SharePoint inventory consists of but is not limited to, the following items.

• SharePoint Farm Server Topology
• All Web Applications
• Sites and the Site Collections they belong to
• Both Regular and Large lists (including email-enabled ones) and Libraries
• Individual Pages (Login, profile, etc)
• Custom Master Pages, Page Layouts, and Solutions
• Workflows
• Content Types
• Site Columns
• Permissions are applied at the user or group level.
• User Alerts
• Retention Policies
• Records
• Users and Groups used
• External URL Dependent Files
• Blocked File Types
• Branding
• Any other UI customizations (JavaScript, altered menus, etc.)
• InfoPath Forms
• Information Rights Management

Customization is at the very core of SharePoint, so it’s not surprising that many items on this list may not be in your scenario. Additionally, the opposite can be true too, where some other data items might be within your environment that we have missed out on. In the end, IT administrators who are given the task of managing the migration must take special care so as not to miss out on any data items.

Phase 2. Tidy Up the Accumulated Data for Smooth Migration

One of the most prominent reasons to move the SharePoint site is when the source gets too cluttered to function appropriately. This diminishes productivity while bringing in a whole lot of issues like slower load times, malfunctioning sites, etc.

Therefore, it is the duty of the migration manager to ensure that these limitations stay at their source and don’t get passed on to the new environment. A simple way to limit this risk is to perform a clean-up operation on all the gathered data. That is why we feature this task as a separate section in this SharePoint Online migration checklist, and you should too.

Exclude Some Unnecessary Data 

• Invalid and Orphan Users
• Dysfunctional SharePoint Groups, Lists, and Libraries
• Ineffective versions that are present in the version history portal
• Old and Unused Content, Sites, and Workflows
• Junk files that are present in the recycle bin

Important Points While Cleaning Data

1. Make cleaning an individual responsibility. There are many cases where a person deletes a file belonging to someone else, not knowing that it has some critical data. If users are in charge of their own stuff, this is less likely to occur.
2. Moreover, administrators can speed up the process by combining the sites into collections where similar redundant data can be scrapped all at once instead of the time-consuming alternative.

Phase 3. Preparation for Your New SharePoint Environment

No amount of data cleaning is sufficient if we don’t have a place to put it. That is why the endpoint itself must be ready to receive a large amount of data. Moreover, during endpoint creation, there is a list of things to keep in mind Don’t worry; you need not go anywhere else, as we provide them right here.

Essentials to Setup for New SharePoint Environment

One of the most important phases of the SharePoint Online migration checklist is setting up the new cloud environment. Let’s see how.

• Form the new environment’s architecture to match the source.
• Build and set SharePoint hub site(s) settings likewise
• Optimize the performance of new SharePoint Servers’ during installation
• Set up all Web Apps one by one and be sure to follow all authentication and authorization rules
• Keep a backup of all critical data
• Test the restore mechanism
• If needed, set SharePoint up to get user profiles from any specific sources
• Map a plan for the metadata on your content
• Update your metadata; bulk additions or edits to metadata
• Optimize mapping of templates, columns, or users
• Examine your customizations and, if necessary, transform them to work in the new destination site.
• Create a systematic watchlist according to these guidelines:
  • Establish a hierarchy of various duties and responsibilities.
  • Sort your organizational data according to a time period (utility has an inbuilt setting for this).
  • Change the settings for guest and external access (Pause this option temporarily)
  • Map access rights and collect metadata of users and groups 

Phase 4. Inform SharePoint Users for New Environment

End users are the ones who bear the brunt of the errors or enjoy the benefits of successful changes. To make sure that the latter remains the case, administrators must put in extra effort to train the users. This re-education is compulsory for all organizations that have a migration on their horizon.

Moreover, in the end, it is the users who determine whether the change is for the better or worse. So users must be trained about the new environment. The changes and new features should be explained clearly to make sure everything is clear. Additionally, users should also be made aware of the timeline of the changes within the SharePoint environment.

Users who are part of the migration get to see the following:

• Major and minor URL updates
• Improvements to the SharePoint Sync Policy
• Bookmarks Updates
• Referenced Documents Location

We urge the administrators to pay close attention now because we are about to inform them about the most important project plan item.

Phase 5. Choose the Microsoft Professional’s Suggested Migration Method

As industry veterans, we recognize the importance of the migration operation for users. So, as a result, we have come up with the MVP’s Advised SharePoint Migration Tool to add it to the SharePoint Online migration checklist. This tool is intelligently designed to adjust according to the scenario and fulfill all migration requirements.

Download Now Purchase Now

It redefines industry standards with its unique and simple UI with different filters to bring the best-in-class results. Download the tool from the link below and follow these quick steps to shift all SharePoint data.

Step 1. Launch the tool to pick Office 365 as both the Source and Target.

Step 2. Go to the Workload area to only select Sites then apply the Date Filter.

Step 3. Conduct Validation for both Source and Target using admin-level credentials.

Step 4. Map users via Fetch, Import, Download, and redo the same for SharePoint Sites.

Step 5. Make Sections, apply Priority, Validate, and then initiate by hitting the Start Migration button.

Phase 6. Post SharePoint Online Migration Checklist for IT Admins

Follow the below steps for SharePoint migration testing.

• Use the feedback mechanism of the utility for any error reporting and resolve it accordingly. 
• Pick a select few users who have relevant experience and assign them various Site domains for testing purposes.
• Make sure that in the testing phase, no unnecessary changes are made. To do this keep the Site in read-only mode.
• Testing should include both white box and black box scenarios for all workflows with their complementary storage areas.
• In case the testing team finds missing data, this issue can be resolved via the Retry Failed feature of the utility itself.
• For site-level errors, IT admins can apply the command “Repair-SPSite” and then check the service again.
• Functionality-breaking issues that affect multiple sites might need remigration; this can be achieved via the re-run full migration function of the utility.
• Once all tests are done and any major/ minor errors are resolved, it is safe to permanently take down the source SharePoint site.

Conclusion

Through this tutorial, we aim to give expert guidance on the SharePoint Online migration checklist. We hope that the explanation provided here was enough for the admins who have a migration project coming up. Finally, we would like to highlight the fact that most problems during migration arise from choosing an inferior method. To counter the upcoming challenges, you should go for the utility mentioned above.