For most environments this means at least Azure AD and Exchange, and in an increasing number of cases you can throw Teams in here too. Before the SharePoint boots can get on the ground the supporting cast has to be in place. Define the entire Identity Posture: Azure AD and ExchangeĪfter someone is put in charge of the migration process, the next step of the SharePoint Online migration is oddly enough not SharePoint. They are necessary for a solid foundation going into Office 365 and they need education to be that foundation. If the company is migrating from something like file shares the change is huge and the IT department will need a lot of education if they’re going to be able to manage the new environment in a way that is beneficial to the company and the users. If the company is migrating from SharePoint Server th e change to Office 365 is big, and the IT group will need to be educated on the differences between on-prem environments and cloud technologies and strategies. It’s a bit tangential, but this person also needs to ensure that the entire IT team gets the training they need. A strong leader can keep everything in sync and increase the chances that users don’t riot in the streets. If the Exchange or SharePoint team s get ahead of the I dentity team nece ssary user properties may not be synced to the cloud and user based features may not work as expected. If t he SharePoint team gets ahead of the Exchange team people can lose alerts or other email based collaboration can malfunction. I’ve been part of more than one migration that was unnecessarily painful because there wasn’t a person with the entire vision leading all of the groups. The importance of this role can’t be overstated. The person orchestrating it all has to be sure that leadership has their back as they make the hard decisions. As with any time you have a large group of people working together there will be differing goals. Finally, this person must have the support of both IT and business leadership in the company. It doesn’t do any good if each group can just ignore the Office 365 project leader.

They will also need authority over the groups that manage the Office 365 components. This person will need to have a good understanding of the Office 365 suite and how they interact so they can coordinate each group’s activities.

The best way to ensure that is to put one person in charge of the entire Office 365 migration project.

While this blog post will focus mainly on SharePoint Online, Office 365 is a big suite of inter twined applications, and for your SharePoint Online migration to not end in frustration and misery, all the pieces of Office 365 have to be in sync. The most important piece of a successful Office 365 migration is good leadership. Put someone in charge of the Office 365 migration In this blog post I’ll cover the steps you should go through as you’re planning to move.

Office 365 migration plan