Office 365 Migration Project Plan – Risk Management and Mitigation!

Different Phases of The Office 365 Migration Checklist!

If your organization is ready to implement the benefits of a cloud-powered Office 365 environment. Then you will need to go through four different phases for a seamless transition.

The stages you need to consider when thinking about your Office 365 migration are,

• Phase 1: A full-proof plan to implement the new cloud-based platform
• Phase 2: Check off the pre-migration needs
• Phase 3: Choose a reliable medium to perform the migration
• Phase 4: Things to carry out post-migration

Now, let’s have a detailed discussion about these four parts of the Office 365 migration checklist.

Phase-1: Office 365 Migration Project Plan – Pre-Planning

In the past decade, many large IT transformation projects succeeded, while some also failed. Those who executed slowly failed due to a lack of adequate planning.

Just think about it, your employees depend upon their emails every day to be productive. If they lose their important email due to an error in the migration process. Then the impact that could be put on their work is unimaginable. 

Must Read: How to Export Office 365 Mailbox to PST With or Without Outlook Step by Step?

Hence, planning plays an important role in every migration project. If you invest your time in the Office 365 migration project plan, you can able to identify the key objectives and scope of the migration.  Also, you can refer back to the plan if things change.

So, you can start planning by considering the below aspects.

• Have a draft ready regarding how, when, and where your data needs to be migrated
• Assign a practical timeline for the completion of the migration
• Schedule a meeting with the team members involved in the email migration to Office 365

Now, let’s make a move towards the next step.

Phase-2: Pre-Migration Checklist for Office 365 Migration

There is a list of things to do before tapping into the migration process. So, make sure to check the Office 365 migration project plan. Such as,

Get Everyone Onboard for Migration: You need to have clear communication with the employees of your organization. Also, define the project scope, timeline, and impact on work to the members.

Map Out the Current IT Environment of Your Organization

• List of servers and components
• Security features
• Network settings and DNS records
• Bandwidth scope

Inventory That You Are Going to Need

• Number of user accounts and mailboxes
• The application needs to be configured to work with O365
• User authentication
• Client versions and configuration

Fixing Probable Road Blockers

• Active directory clean-up
• Software Update
• Network performance assessment
• End-user training program

Define Mailboxes and Contents

• What is the type and size of files and folders in mailboxes?
• Requirement of bandwidth
• Want to keep information on-premises?

Set up Office 365 Accounts

• Need for sufficient licenses and subscriptions 
• Validate domain names
• Application usage and security permission 
• AD synchronization and single sign-on (both are optional)

Once you complete all the tasks of pre-migration, you need to proceed with the task. For the same, a tried & tested solution is needed for a successful transition. Hence, it is time to discuss step three of the Microsoft Office 365 migration project plan.

Phase-3: Execute Office 365 Migration Using Reliable Source

Just like planning, the right tool is also the deciding factor for a flawless migration. Don’t worry if you are not aware of the reliable & quick solution. So, almost every IT industry specialist recommends the Top-Rated Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Tool for this job. Hence, after choosing the best option, you can securely move your crucial information without any data loss.

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However, there are manual solutions available but they are not recommended by experts for several reasons i.e. time-consuming, risk data loss, not preserving the hierarchy of the information, due to repetitive steps, these methods are not practical for large volumes of content, etc.

Last but not least, after completing the operation, you need to address various requirements, and you will find it in the next i.e. final step of the Office 365 migration project plan.

Phase-4: Verification & Clean up Post-migration

Always have a plan for success to be sure that there is nothing left even after the migration. So, follow the post-migration checklist.

• Assign licenses to each mailbox in Office 365 as soon as the process is completed. By doing this you can avoid the risk of account deactivation.
• Make sure you get the status ‘The Folder is Up to Date’ after redirecting emails to Office 365.
• Configure Autodiscover DNS records to connect the user mailboxes to the Outlook email client.
• Once confirm that everything is working fine, license assigning and all is done, you may now deactivate the source environment.

[Tip: Experts recommend deactivating only when there is no need for synchronization in the future]

Author’s Suggestion!

No matter how small or large your data volume is, a proper Office 365 migration project plan is necessary for the transition. Hence, successfully carry out the same by following these four essential phases. Additionally, in this complete checklist, we have also suggested a professional utility for safe Office 365 data transfer, because initiating the task manually can make a huge risk of data loss.