Migrating SharePoint Online?

Storing and sharing documents in SharePoint online costs less, reduces confusion and supports collaboration and mobile working:

Seamless access
to documents
Reduced server
& maintenance costs
Better scalability
Enterprise
security
Updates and
enhancements
Opportunities for
process automation

Migrating environments is not anyone’s idea of a good time. The scope is broad and the potential for issues is significant. No one wants to stand in front of the CEO and explain a security breach, missing data or why staff cannot access the files they need. Getting expert help makes sense.

HOW CAN WE
HELP YOU?

WebVine have been delivering SharePoint projects for over 12 years. Our proven approach will ensure your SharePoint migration is successful.

How we can help with your SharePoint migration

WebVine will work with your stakeholders to assess your current environment and create a detailed migration plan meeting your needs now and in the future. WebVine’s proven, rigorous approach has delivered many successful migrations and our wealth of experience means we can anticipate and address issues well before any problems arise.

Our process:

Working With Us

When you engage WebVine to manage your SharePoint migration, you can enjoy the confidence of complete transparency and control.

No nasty surprises or scope creep.

Step 1

We will engage with you to understand your requirements, timings and any limitations to scope the migration in terms of effort, time and cost.

Step 2

You can then purchase a block of hours for WebVine to complete part or all of the project. We will recommend the appropriate hours required based on the agreed scope, with options for additional support if required.

Step 3

Our team will complete the work as agreed, maintaining accurate timesheets and reporting back to you regularly.

Start realising the benefits now

While most organisations are motivated to migrate SharePoint online by cost savings and mobile accessibility, there are so many more potential benefits.

Secure
Modern design
Document
Management
Effective
Search
Process
Automation
Integrations

Managing your migration effectively, using an experienced, technically knowledgeable partner will ensure not only a successful migration, but an enhanced working environment.

HOW TO MIGRATE SHAREPOINT ONLINE

PHASE 1

Assessment and Analysis

Our experienced consultants will work with your team to create a clear picture of your current situation and what are you trying to achieve.

  • Which features are different in SharePoint Online and what impacts will this have? The features you have on-premises must still be available in your Office 365 license.
  • Customisations built on SharePoint on-premises will not necessarily translate seamlessly to SharePoint Online. Are all of your custom code and web parts still necessary? How will these requirements be accommodated in the new environment?
  • Do you have enough bandwidth? When transferring all your data from in-house servers to online, your capacity will need to be reviewed.
  • How accurate is your Active Directory set-up? Access to essential resources will now be managed through Groups and if these are not complete or up to date, users will have problems connecting. AD issues also have the potential to cause data breaches and security vulnerabilities.
  • IT Skills – does your IT team have the necessary knowledge to support the SharePoint online environment and assist users? Will you require further support?

PHASE 2

Content Audit & Roadmap

SharePoint migration is an excellent opportunity to review your files. In many cases, these can be deleted or archived rather than migrated across. For those that remain, now is the time to revisit Permissions, Managed Metadata structure and Content Types for effective search.

WebVine can facilitate workshops to review existing files and identify opportunities for content rationalisation. File structures should be reviewed for logic and efficiency. It is of course essential to ensure you have enough allocated space for the total file size of your data!

Once agreement has been reached on files to migrate, we will bring it all together into a clear roadmap, defining roles, actions, timings and outcomes.

Don’t forget to communicate what is happening to stakeholders such as site owners, admins, Helpdesk and your change management team

PHASE 3

Migrate

Now comes the actual migration! There are four main options.

  1. Manually copying files – with smaller environments this might be viable, and it is something we can manage for you or you could manage yourself.
  2. Using Microsoft’s SharePoint Migration Tool - good for simple file migrations from document libraries without document sets, lookups or custom metadata. Note this tool is only for moving content.
  3. Using a third party tool like Sharegate or AvePoint
  4. A hybrid approach

For all but the third party tool option, we will need to prepare the entire environment beforehand for it to receive the migration packages. WebVine will recreate your on- premises SharePoint structure in SharePoint Online, migrating all item types and permissions to the resources.

Considerations:

Data volume and complexity – does your migration method need to handle large sets of documents with special properties? Does it need to solve file duplication issues or move whole sites, libraries and folder structures? What about document templates? If necessary, custom scripts can be written to migrate content and retain metadata and versions.

Scheduling – do you need to migrate at once or should it be broken up into a rolling schedule?

Permissions: How will you maintain user access?

Metadata and existing hierarchies: The drag and drop feature of the M365 migration tool for example can compromise metadata.

Back up & recovery: Microsoft Office 365 does not have extensive backup & recovery capabilities, whereas tools like AvePoint do provide this. Ensure your migration plan includes a rollback failsafe for loss of data.

PHASE 4

Manage the change

Before we crack the Champagne, there’s one more thing to consider… the users!

The way they access their documents will change – likely overnight or the weekend – and on Monday morning, business must carry on as usual. If people are not ready to use SharePoint Online, they may find dodgy workarounds.

As an experienced SharePoint consultant with years of migrations behind us, WebVine is the perfect partner to ensure your users are prepared and informed.

We will recommend a communication and training plan to drive user engagement and better adoption.

It’s also a great opportunity to conduct an education campaign around document management. With SharePoint’s sophisticated document history capabilities, there is no need to create multiple document versions when changes are made, users can simply go back to previous History versions if required.

“Communicate early, communicate often and provide visibility and transparency of how the migration is going.” AvePoint

PHASE 5

Governance and Support

Best practice document governance after migrating to SharePoint Online includes:

  1. Establish clear policies and procedures for document management such as guidelines for naming conventions, version control, and access controls.
  2. Assign roles and responsibilities - designating specific individuals or teams to manage documents and enforce policies and procedures.
  3. Implement a process for regular document review and audit. This includes checking for outdated or redundant documents, guidelines for how long documents should be kept and when they should be deleted.
  4. Provide training and resources for users to help them understand and comply with document management policies and procedures.
  5. Regularly review and update policies and procedures to ensure they remain effective and relevant.
  6. Monitor the usage of the documents and storage, regularly archiving or deleting unnecessary documents.

Implementing these steps will help ensure that your organisation's documents are well-managed, secure, and compliant with any relevant regulations.

Start your SharePoint migration now

Please complete your details below and one of our consultants will call you back.