September 27, 2023
|
20
min read
Kas Nowicka
Kas has spent the last decade working with Microsoft’s cloud solutions and sharing governance, adoption, and productivity best practices with the MVP community.
Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration

In today's fast-paced business landscape, organizational transformations are no longer the exception, but increasingly the rule. For IT leaders and admins like you, tenant-to-tenant migration (also called a “cross-tenant migration”) is a critical step that you and your team can take to align and optimize digital resources.  

Inside this article:

The phases of a tenant-to-tenant migration project

Every migration project is unique, and your project's duration could span weeks or even years. Whether you’re migrating from Azure AD / Entra ID to the cloud or consolidating tenants, you’ll need to define a clear migration timeline with defined parameters. E.g., Who are your stakeholders – local IT teams? Department heads? C-levels? Enablement and training teams? And how many are there? Which components are you migrating? Is it mostly about user mailboxes or are you planning to move all existing services with data connected to them? How many resources will you have to support you and/or your team to perform the migration and if they have sufficient expertise and knowledge required to avoid errors and potential data loss/security breaches?

Ultimately, your migration journey will unfold through three key phases:  

  1. Pre-migration
  2. Execution
  3. Post-migration

The pre-migration phase involves inventorying, planning and identity migration while the execution phase focuses on data migration. Post-migration encompasses user account updates, reconfigurations, and user communication.

Step-by-step guide to Microsoft 365 tenant migration

Step-by-step guide to Microsoft 365 tenant migration

(Please note: Given the unique nature of each migration scenario, it’s nearly impossible to create a one-fits-all guide. The approach we present here aims to cover a broad range of scenarios you’ll most likely encounter.)

Step 1: Pre-migration planning and assessment

  • Conduct a thorough inventory of data, users, and resources in the source tenant.
  • Identify any custom configurations, domain settings, and third-party integrations.
  • Determine the criticality of data and plan for data clean-up or archiving if necessary.
  • Analyze the number of users, mailboxes, and data volume to choose the appropriate migration approach.
  • Decide on the domain migration process – I.e. will you start releasing the domain to move it to the target tenant or configure some sort of co-existence (“domain sharing”) or leverage 3rd party tools?
  • Communicate to users about planned migration and notify about possible outages, support plan and training options further down the road.

Step 2: Set up your target tenant

  • Create the target Microsoft 365 tenant (if it doesn’t already exist).
  • Configure the necessary settings, security, and domains in the target tenant.
  • Identity migration – provision user accounts in the target tenant, usually in disabled state, as you want to avoid having to deal with multiple accounts.

Step 3: Prepare source and target tenants

  • Set up proper permissions and administrative access in both source and target tenants for migration.

Step 4: Domain configuration

  • Confirm all domain settings and, if needed, update DNS settings to ensure proper domain verification and mail flow during migration. (Steps may vary depending on if you’re using a third-party tool or have set up co-existence etc.)

Step 5: Mailbox pre-stage (for larger migrations)

  • Pre-stage mailboxes in the target tenant to reduce the impact on end-users during the final migration.

Step 6: Data migration

  • Use a reliable third-party migration tool or Microsoft's native migration methods (e.g., Exchange Online PowerShell, SharePoint Migration Tool, etc.) to migrate data between tenants.
  • Migrate mailboxes, calendars, contacts, and other data based on the chosen migration strategy (e.g., staggered or bulk migration).
  • After migration, verify the data integrity in the target tenant to ensure all information is transferred correctly.

Step 7: Update user accounts

  • Change user UPNs (User Principal Names) to match the target domain to facilitate a smooth login experience.

Step 8: Reconfigure applications and integrations

  • Update any third-party applications or integrations to work with the new target tenant's settings.

Step 9: User communication and training

  • Inform users about the migration process, potential changes, and any required actions on their part.
  • Provide training or assistance on using the new Office 365 environment.

Step 10: Finalize migration

  • Complete the migration process, ensuring that all data is successfully migrated and verified.

Step 11: Post-migration testing

  • Conduct post-migration testing to ensure that all systems, applications, and services are functioning as expected.

Step 12: Clean up old tenant (if necessary)

  • Once migration is confirmed successful, decommission the old tenant or perform any necessary cleanup tasks.

Step 13: Ongoing support and monitoring

  • Provide ongoing support to users in the new tenant and monitor the system for any issues.
“I like the fact that the CoreView platform has the ability to leverage v-tenants and license pools, allowing for a granular approach to tenant management, ensuring the right amount of access is granted to specific admins.” Read the full review here.

Best practices for moving one Microsoft 365 tenant to another

During a recent discussion with sixteen-year Microsoft veteran Roy Martinez and nine-year Microsoft MVP Vasil Michev, we uncovered best practices for ensuring your tenant migration goes to plan. A common theme came to light:  the pre-migration stage is the MOST IMPORTANT stage. It requires meticulous planning to ensure the migration goes to plan. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about this—BUT that stage is often overlooked or rushed.  

Below are the eight best practices Roy and Vasil recommend.

Pre-migration best practices

Best practice #1:  Meticulously inventory your data during pre-migration planning.

A common mistake IT teams make is thinking that storage size equates to the number of items. Storage size does not necessarily equal the number of items.  

During our discussion, Roy shared this example:    

“Coming from a content migration perspective, when I take inventory of something—like my SharePoint site, for example—whether it's on-premises or from another tenant site, I might see that it has ten gigabytes (GB) of data according to my storage reports. I might then assume that data generally moves at roughly five GBs an hour and calculate that it will take me two hours to move that data.

However, what I might not have considered is that those ten GBs of data could consist of five million different items—rather than just ten one-GB items. This is a significant factor when it comes to throughput! When you're moving data across cyberspace, moving ten one-gigabyte 'bricks' of data might take some time, but it's considerably easier than moving 5,000,000 .1 gigabyte bricks.”  

In other words, it's more important to understand the total number of individual items in the SharePoint object model than the total GB size of your storage.  

The number of items (or, “bricks”) of data you’re moving can significantly impact your migration throughput. The more items you have, the more difficult it will be to migrate them. This underscores the importance of understanding (and documenting) the number of GBs and individual items you have.

Join Roy and Siam for “Mission 365: five strategies to guide your Microsoft 365 tenant migration project” for best practices when building your migration plan. Learn more here.

Best Practice #2: Don’t neglect your identity powers when you’re inventorying items in the pre-migration phase.

When taking stock of your items and data, be sure to inventory your identity data. That includes all identity powers—so, not just access to mailboxes and files, but also access to Line of Business (LOB) processes, automation, and third-party integrations.  

This is a commonly overlooked aspect. But, failing to consider these can potentially break integrations with on-premises and Software as a Service (SaaS) apps.  

Read Vasil’s thoughts below:

"A common mistake to avoid when going through a migration is failing to gather a proper inventory of service principals, managed identities, and integrated applications. Overlooking the identity aspects of a tenant-to-tenant migration can lead to users ending up with no access to the HR system, or some automated/critical business processes being broken."  

In essence, a comprehensive inventory of both your data and identity powers is crucial in avoiding potential issues during the migration process.  

Best Practice #3: Evaluate multiple tenant migration tools.

Different tools have different strengths. You won't always find a single migration tool that fits all your needs. And, if the tool you choose fails to cover certain aspects of your migration, you will likely face complications down the line, including cost increases.  

For example, selecting a tool that does wonders in migrating Exchange data but fails to migrate solutions built on top of SharePoint Online (SPO) or data held in Preservation Hold Libraries, can lead to complications.  

You may even consider using Microsoft’s native tools like Administrative Units. These are helpful if you need to assign a subset of your users to an AU. Then, you can delegate administrative permissions for that AU to specific IT admins who are responsible for that group of users—allowing you to manage and migrate each AU separately and providing a more controlled and organized migration process.  

However, it's important to note that while AUs can help segment your migration process, they don't inherently facilitate the migration of data or services from one tenant to another. You'll still need to use appropriate migration tools and strategies to move your actual data.  

For IT managers and system administrators managing multiple tenants in Azure AD, it's crucial to understand the complexities involved. Read our handbook for managing multiple tenants in Azure AD for detailed insights and strategies.

Best Practice #4: Add buffer time to your migration timeline for inventory overlooked during pre-migration

When creating your migration timeline, be sure to add buffer time to it to account for any forgotten inventory items during the pre-migration stage.  

Underestimating the time required for the migration is a common mistake and, inevitably, you will forget to inventory some sets of data.  

The purpose of pre-migration inventory is to understand what you're trying to move so that you don't move things you don't need. One of the biggest advantages of pre-migration is identifying what won't work in the target that you've defined.  

For example, you may be using a custom solution that’s not available in the target tenant or your SharePoint site may have data tied to a mechanical solution that won’t work in the target tenant. Be sure to devise a strategy for how you are going to migrate those particular items as it will likely require some sort of transformation to fit into the new system.

See how CUNY leverages CoreView Virtual Tenants™ to deliver Microsoft 365 to 243,000 students and more than 40,000 staff and faculty

Best Practice #5: Choose the right migration approach.  

Your migration approach should be based on your pre-migration inventory to ensure it best suits your organization's needs and resources.

You have four options: the Big Bang approach for a single event migration, the staged migration for gradual data migration, the phased migration that would happen in batches, and the rapid switch approach for partial pre-staging and migration.  

For example, if you're a small company that got acquired by a big company (and all you ever did was keep a bunch of files in folders on a file server), the Big Bang approach might be suitable for you. However, if you're moving from folders in a file system to SharePoint, a phased approach might be more appropriate.

Best Practice #6: Clean up your data before you migrate it.  

Organizations often do not take time to create a good data and file structure before the migration. Instead, they’ll pick up everything in the original tenant and dump it into the new one—resulting in a cluttered mess.  

Cleaning up your data prior to migration can prevent clutter and ensure a smoother migration process.  

Here’s Roy again,  

“At my prior organization, I was tagged to help the marketing department migrate their foldering structure from SharePoint to Teams. The goal of this was to make it easier for them to do all of their work out of Teams.  

“But, the folders had super old data in them—campaign data from 2016, old logos, etc. We migrated everything.  

“Ultimately, the team ended up having to clean up the NEW foldering system after the fact. It took a couple of weeks to fully migrate the data over. It would’ve taken the same amount of time to just clean up the files before the migration—and we would’ve ended up with a better end product.  

“In hindsight, we should’ve done a full data clean up before the migration. Strip out the old stuff, archive it, and don’t even move it over in the first place.”  

Tenant migration stage best practices

Best Practice #7: Migrate identity data first.

Migrate your identities first and foremost—even if you're not logging into the target tenant yet. Everything that gets moved in an identity-focused security model needs to be owned by someone. Not only should you understand what you're moving (and why and where and how you’re moving it), but you should also understand who will own everything once it is moved.

Identity migration usually either comes very first or very last. In an identity-focused security model, everything—every piece of content, document, SharePoint site, mailbox, and team that gets moved must be owned by someone.

For instance, let’s say “Joelle” owns “Document X” in Tenant A and that document is moved to Tenant B. It must be owned by someone in Tenant B as well. You should have a pre-instantiated user object ready for “Joelle” in Tenant B, even if she hasn't started logging in there yet.

To accomplish this, you may consider using Microsoft Administrative Units to help manage and migrate specific groups of users separately.  

So, to sum it up, prioritizing the migration of identity data ensures that every piece of content, document, SharePoint site, mailbox, and team has an owner—meaning you prevent potential access issues.  

Best Practice #8: Pre-instantiate users to avoid business disruptions.

If you’re going with a rapid switch migration approach, be sure to pre-instantiate users in the target tenant. Then, at a predefined time, switch those users over.  

This approach is particularly useful when moving user identities.  

But, be careful not to switch over everything before all the other workloads (such as email, content, and sites that users need to access to exist) have been migrated into the target tenant.  

Remember that a user can represent not only a person but also a device or a mailbox, among other things. However, usually that user represents a human being that needs to work!  

So, let’s go back to the previous example.  

“Joelle” exists on Tenant A and we need to move her to tenant B. We could either move Joelle's user account to Tenant B and notify her to log in with new credentials starting tomorrow. However, she won't be able to access her usual information until we've completed the migration, meaning her work is disrupted.  

The other option is to choose a more hybrid approach and pre-instantiate Joelle in Tenant B. She keeps working at a normal pace and can access all of her files. Then, at a predetermined moment, we’d switch everything over to the new setup.

What is “pre-instantiation? In a tenant-to-tenant migration in Microsoft 365, you might pre-instantiate user accounts in the target tenant. This means you would set up the user accounts in the new tenant before you start moving data. This way, when the data migration takes place, each piece of data already has an owner in the new tenant, which can help ensure a smoother transition and maintain proper access controls and permissions.

Best Practice #9: Understand the compliance aspects of your cross-tenant migration.

Be sure not to underestimate the compliance aspects of a tenant-to-tenant migration.

Your compliance needs and obligations might require you to move or retain prolonged access to data in the original tenant, including files protected by sensitivity labels/Information Rights Management (IRM).

Neglecting this can mean you risk breaking compliance requirements or losing access to the protected data.  

For example, imagine a scenario where you overlooked the retention policies and sensitivity labels during the migration process. This oversight could lead to crucial data being inadvertently lost or rendered inaccessible, causing a significant disruption to your operations and potentially violating compliance requirements.

Never assume that things will "just work".  

Discover 10 Microsoft 365 tenant management best practices for Enterprise IT Managers.

Triggers for cross-tenant migrations

There may be a variety of business needs that trigger a Microsoft 365 tenant consolidation project. As an IT leader, it's essential for you and your team to gain a clear understanding of these triggers. Not only does it unveil the urgency of these migrations, but it also reveals the significant benefits they can offer your organization.

There are many variables that may impact your migration plan—and no single plan or set of instructions can encompass everything. So, while we focus strictly on the tenant-to-tenant migration process in this article, the reasons (and processes described further down below) may be applicable to other types of migration.  

Below are the typical triggers for migrations.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

When organizations undergo mergers, acquisitions, or divestitures, they often inherit different Microsoft 365 tenants with distinct configurations, user bases, and collaboration tools. Migrating to a single tenant after M&A activity allows you to integrate operations seamlessly, foster a unified company culture, and enhance collaboration among all teams—even across different entities. A consolidated tenant can also streamline license management and reduce administrative overhead.

Corporate restructuring and reorganization

If your organization is undergoing restructuring or internal reorganization, you may need to reevaluate your IT infrastructure to eliminate redundancies and streamline processes. Merging multiple tenants into one facilitates a smoother transition during these transformations, helping to realign teams, resources, and communication channels. This leads to increased efficiency, reduced costs, and a more cohesive digital ecosystem.

Data security and compliance

In some industries, data security and compliance regulations are paramount. When you consolidate tenants, you’re centralizing control over security policies, data access, and compliance measures. A unified tenant simplifies audits, monitoring, and enforcement of security protocols, ensuring sensitive information is safeguarded and regulatory requirements are met.

Optimization of resources and cost savings

If you have multiple tenants, your organization may be underutilizing resources or overspending on licenses. By consolidating into a single tenant, companies can optimize the allocation of licenses, eliminate redundant subscriptions, and negotiate better licensing agreements with Microsoft. This can lead to significant cost savings in the long run.

Streamlining collaboration and productivity

Operating on different tenants can create silos that hinder seamless collaboration among employees, partners, and clients. A unified tenant can help foster better communication, data sharing, and teamwork across your organization. Users can access shared resources, calendars, and documents easily, driving productivity and innovation.

Standardizing IT processes and policies

If your organization has multiple tenants, the IT department may face challenges governing and enforcing consistent policies and procedures. Migrating to a single tenant provides a way to standardize IT processes, security measures, and governance policies, leading to improved management and support capabilities.

Scalability and flexibility

For companies experiencing rapid growth or expansion, you may outgrow your existing Microsoft 365 tenant(s). Migrating to a new, scalable tenant allows organizations to accommodate an increasing number of users, applications, and data while maintaining optimal performance.

The benefits of a successful tenant migration

A Microsoft 365 tenant migration project can open doors for a myriad of business initiatives, propelling you and your organization towards unparalleled success. By unifying disparate tenants into a harmonious digital ecosystem, your business can unlock a host of transformative outcomes that redefine collaboration, productivity, and innovation.

Take a look at the potential outcomes below to determine how the project may impact your organization.

Enhanced collaboration and productivity

Consolidating Microsoft 365 tenants can streamline communication, data sharing, and collaboration across your organization. With all teams operating within a single tenant, employees can access shared resources, calendars, and documents seamlessly, eliminating silos and fostering a culture of collaboration. This enhanced teamwork drives productivity as information flows effortlessly, and decision-making becomes more agile.

Optimized resource utilization

By migrating to a single tenant, your organization can optimize its resource allocation, making the most of available licenses and subscriptions. Redundant or underutilized licenses can be identified and reallocated, leading to cost savings and improved license management. Moreover, centralized resource management allows IT teams to deploy updates, patches, and security measures more efficiently.

Centralized security and compliance  

Operating on multiple tenants may result in fragmented security policies and compliance measures. With a unified tenant, your organization can enforce consistent security protocols, ensuring data protection and compliance with industry regulations. Centralized monitoring and management facilitate timely identification and resolution of security threats, reducing the risk of data breaches.

Streamlined governance and management

The migration process presents an opportunity to streamline IT governance and management processes. Your IT team can standardize policies, configurations, and procedures across the organization, simplifying administration and support tasks. Having a unified tenant enhances visibility, allowing your administrators to make data-driven decisions and proactively address potential issues.

Seamless user experience

A single tenant environment offers your users a seamless experience as they access familiar tools and resources. With uniform login credentials and domain settings, employees can collaborate effortlessly across departments and geographical locations. Providing a consistent user experience can enhance user satisfaction and reduce the need for additional training.

Scalability and future readiness

Migrating to a new, scalable tenant prepares your organization for future growth and technological advancements. As businesses expand, a unified environment can accommodate an increasing number of users and applications without compromising performance. By preparing for the future, your organization can stay agile and adapt to evolving market demands.

Improved data management and retention

Consolidating tenants can enable your organization to implement consistent data management and retention policies. IT teams can centralize data backup and recovery processes, ensuring business continuity and mitigating the risk of data loss. A well-structured data management strategy enhances data accessibility and retrieval, empowering your users to make informed decisions.

Enhanced collaboration with external partners

A single tenant environment helps facilitate seamless collaboration with your external partners, vendors, and clients. By sharing resources and documents within the same tenant, you can help break down collaboration barriers and build stronger relationships with external stakeholders—enhancing collaboration, fostering innovation and driving business growth.

Simplified IT support and training

A unified Microsoft 365 environment reduces the complexity of IT support and training. Your IT team can focus on a single set of tools and configurations, making troubleshooting and issue resolution more efficient. End-users benefit from simplified training programs, as they navigate familiar applications and workflows within the unified tenant.

CoreView is an exceptional management tool for Microsoft 365. It offers a user-friendly interface and a range of impressive features, such as virtual tenant management, license tracking, and playbook creation. CoreView effectively fills the gap that Microsoft left in their native management portal.” Read the full review on G2.

Considerations when evaluating cross-tenant migration tools

By carefully evaluating the features and limitations of certain tools, your business can make informed decisions when choosing the best migration tool that aligns with your unique requirements, ensuring a successful and smooth transition to a new Microsoft 365 tenant.

Here are ten considerations to help you in your evaluation.

Migration Scope
Ideal features: Look for a tool that supports comprehensive migration, including mailboxes, SharePoint, OneDrive, AND Teams data.
Limitations:
Some tools may have limitations on the types of data they can migrate, leading to a need for multiple tools or manual migration. 

Performance
Ideal features:
Opt for a tool with high-speed data transfer and scalability for large-scale migrations, minimizing downtime and disruptions. 
Limitations:
Certain tools may experience performance issues or throttling during migration, leading to potential delays.

Customization and flexibility
Ideal features: Choose a tool that offers advanced customization options to tailor the migration process according to specific organizational needs.  
Limitations:
Some tools may have limited flexibility, forcing businesses to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach.

User-friendly interface
Ideal features: Prioritize tools with an intuitive and user-friendly interface for easy migration planning and execution. 
Limitations:
Complex tools with steep learning curves may require additional training for IT administrators.

Data security
Ideal features: Ensure the migration tool provides robust data security features, including encryption and compliance measures, to protect sensitive information. 
Limitations: Inadequate data security features may expose data to potential risks during migration.

Cost and licensing structure 
Ideal features: Evaluate the total cost of ownership and licensing structure of the tool to align with the organization's budget.
Limitations:
Some tools may have higher initial investment or ongoing licensing costs that may not align with the organization's financial constraints.

Support and training 
Ideal features: Look for tools with comprehensive technical support and training resources to assist IT administrators during the migration journey. 
Limitations:
Lack of adequate support may result in challenges or delays during the migration process.

Automation and monitoring  
Ideal features: Consider tools with automation capabilities to streamline migration processes and real-time monitoring for tracking progress. 
Limitations:
Limited automation features may result in manual intervention and slower migration times.

Scalability  
Ideal features: Select a tool that can handle migrations of varying sizes, from small organizations to large enterprises. 
Limitations:
Some tools may not scale well, leading to inefficiencies for larger migration projects. 

Data integrity 
Ideal features: Prioritize tools with data integrity checks and validation to ensure that all information is accurately transferred.
Limitations:
Inadequate data integrity features may result in data loss or corruption during migration. 

The role of service providers in tenant-to-tenant migration

Service providers play a critical role in facilitating successful migrations. They bring expertise, specialized tools, and experience to streamline the migration process and mitigate potential challenges. These providers collaborate closely with organizations to assess their unique requirements and craft tailored migration strategies that align with their specific business goals.

The benefits of using service providers when migrating from one tenant to another

  • Expertise and experience: Service providers have extensive experience in handling complex migration projects. Their expertise ensures you have a well-structured migration plan and minimizes the risk of data loss or disruptions during the transition.
  • Access to specialized tools: Service providers often use advanced migration tools and platforms that automate and simplify the migration process. These tools can handle large-scale migrations, ensuring efficiency and accuracy.
  • Reduced downtime: With an in-depth knowledge of migration best practices, service providers can minimize downtime during the transition, allowing your organization to maintain productivity and avoid costly interruptions.
  • Data security and compliance: Service providers prioritize data security and compliance throughout the migration journey. They implement robust security measures and adhere to industry standards to safeguard any sensitive information.
  • Scalability: Whether you’re migrating a small organization or a large enterprise, service providers can scale their solutions to accommodate different migration sizes and complexities.
  • Proactive support: Service providers offer ongoing support and monitoring during and after the migration. They can address any issues promptly and ensure a smooth transition for end-users.

The challenges of using service providers during a cross-tenant migration

  • Cost: Engaging a service provider for migration comes with a financial cost. Your organization will need to evaluate potential budget constraints and determine if the benefits outweigh the expenses.
  • Dependency on third-party: Relying on a service provider means trusting an external entity with critical migration tasks. Your organization must choose reputable and reliable service providers to avoid potential risks.
  • Alignment with business objectives: It is crucial to ensure that the chosen service provider understands your organization's business objectives and aligns the migration strategy accordingly.
  • Data privacy concerns: Your organization must address concerns related to data privacy and data access when working with a service provider, particularly when sensitive information is involved.
  • Communication and collaboration: Effective communication and collaboration between your organization and the service provider are essential for a successful migration. Lack of proper communication can lead to misunderstandings and delays.

By carefully selecting the right service provider, your organization can leverage external expertise to streamline the migration process, achieve business objectives, and embrace the transformative possibilities that come with a successful Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration.

MSPs, maintain customer confidence in your security protocols. Read why it’s crucial for MSPs to maintain baseline configuration.

Tenant-to-tenant migration checklist

To ensure a successful and smooth migration process, there are multiple components that will need attention. Before you start a migration project, review the comprehensive checklist below, or download a copy of the full checklist here.

  • Assess the source tenant by conducting an inventory of data, applications, licenses, users, and analyzing protocols and configurations in use.
  • If applicable, select and test third-party migration tools that best fit your organization's requirements.
  • Evaluate security and compliance ensuring sensitive data is protected and compliance requirements are met during the migration process.
  • Plan user communication and support, which includes creating an informative communication plan, preparing user-friendly reference materials, and training IT support staff.
  • Prepare the target tenant by verifying licenses, setting up administrator accounts, and provisioning user accounts.
  • Conduct pilot testing of the migration plan and generate a quick rollback plan to tackle unforeseen challenges.
  • Schedule the migration by deciding upon the most effective approach based on user count and data volume and prepare a list of user resources for ingestion into the target tenant.
  • Execute the domain transfer by releasing the domain from the source tenant and updating user UPNs to match the target domain.
  • Perform data migration using the selected tool, ensuring the integrity of all transferred data.
  • Reconfigure the target tenant's applications and third-party integrations to align with the new settings.
  • Offer user training and support to adapt to the new Office 365 environment and keep them informed about the migration and any upcoming changes.
  • Execute post-migration testing to ensure all systems and services operate as expected.
  • Upon successful migration, finalize it by decommissioning the old tenant or performing necessary cleanup tasks.
  • Establish ongoing user support and system monitoring in the new tenant for an efficient transitional period.
“Our company uses one M365 tenant to host nine distinct subsidiaries. Prior to using CoreView, managing license usage between those was a nightmare, and RBAC was getting complicated. CoreView V-tenant solved all of this pretty quickly.” Read Romain’s full review on G2.

Common challenges and possible wrong outcomes

It's important to remain aware of potential challenges when undergoing a tenant migration project.

How does a migration project affect other people in your organization? For the end-users, it may mean as “little” as not being able to log in, downtimes, lots of no-delivery emails. Or, you could end up with lots of data loss and, ultimately, apprehension to change and adoption to new technologies.

Let’s jump into the risks.

Risk of data loss

During the migration process, if data isn’t migrated correctly or some files are accidentally overlooked, vital information may be lost, leading to potential disruptions in your business.

Service disruptions

Another risk is the possibility of service disruptions during the migration. For instance, if the migration process encounters technical issues or conflicts with existing configurations, it could result in temporary unavailability of critical applications and services, impacting productivity and causing frustration among users.

Security risks

During migration, sensitive data may be exposed to unauthorized access if proper security measures aren’t implemented. This could lead to data breaches or compliance violations, putting the organization at risk of financial and reputational damage.

Unexpected costs

Sometimes, the project may require additional resources, support, or licensing, potentially straining your organization's budget. Inefficient resource allocation may occur if your organization fails to allocate the right resources for the migration—leading to delays, overspending, and reduced productivity.

User morale

New processes and platforms may cause users to become frustrated. This is especially true when a migration process isn’t well-communicated or when users struggle to use the new tools, ultimately decreasing morale and adoption.

Unexpected downtime

Extended downtime can occur if migration issues cause prolonged disruptions, impacting your business operations and potentially resulting in revenue loss.

Compliance issues

Compliance violations are a serious consequence of migration gone wrong, as mishandling sensitive data during the process could lead to legal and regulatory consequences.

How to make your Microsoft 365 tenant migration successful

A cross-tenant migration in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem is a strategic move that aligns IT infrastructure with the dynamic needs of modern businesses. Understanding the diverse triggers for such migrations empowers IT leaders to make informed decisions that optimize collaboration, enhance security, and drive overall efficiency.  

Through meticulous planning, thoughtful execution, and leveraging the step-by-step guide and supplemental checklist, your organization can successfully navigate the tenant-to-tenant migration journey and unlock the full potential of a unified Microsoft 365 environment.

Before you begin your migration journey, it may be worthwhile to consider using a Microsoft 365 management platform to help your team manage the migration more effectively. Platforms like CoreView, although not direct migration tools, offer crucial capabilities for assessing application performance, enforcing security protocols, optimizing license usage, and streamlining user provisioning per Microsoft 365's best practices.

With CoreView, you can dig deep for insights and analytics to enhance collaboration, productivity, and resource utilization, leading to data-driven decisions and tenant performance optimization. Easily monitor user activity, mailbox usage, and application performance to ensure a smooth transition. By using our pre-built policies and automation options, your team can manage user accounts, permissions, and resources in the target tenant, while automated features aid the IT division with routine tasks, thus improving operational efficiency. This ensures minimal disruptions and data integrity during the migration process. Plus, CoreView’s capabilities extend beyond migration to support ongoing operations in your Microsoft 365 environment.  

With its intuitive interface, you can automate processes like:

See how you can go beyond basic monitoring and management to unlock Microsoft 365's full potential in this 90-second video.

Or, get started by taking a tour of our solution today.

Like the article? Send your feedback to me at kasia.nowicka@coreview.com. Ciao! 

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Created by M365 experts, for M365 experts.