Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Part3

This section of the blog series is focused on the migration and the selection of the tool and the procedure during the migration process. Once the basic topics of strategy and identity have been clarified, we come to the next question: "How and what do we actually migrate?

Microsoft 365 contains a large number of services, so it is important to define at this point what is to be migrated, because this will have an impact on the runtime, complexity and selection of the migration tool. In some scenarios, companies have only been using Exchange Online up to now and in others Outlook Teams, Planner, Groups, etc. are being used.

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Based on my experience, this planning should also be coordinated with the business responsible persons in the company and communicated to the employees. In the process of migration / integration, IT already has a large number of tasks and missing data or information in the migration process can result in employees' displeasure and additional workload for IT.

Definition of the affected Office 365 services

The first step is to identify which services are used in the tenant to be migrated in order to determine whether and to what scope of data and settings need to be migrated.

Collaboration Services

Basis Services

• Exchange Online
• Office for Enterprise
• SharePoint Online
• OneDrive for Business
• Microsoft Groups
• Microsoft Teams

Power Platform

• Power Automate / Microsoft Flow
• Power Apps
• Power BI Reporting Service
• Fabric

Additional Features & Services

• Yammer (Viva Engage)
• Microsoft Forms
• Sway
• Stream
• Planner
• Bookings
• Kaizala
• ToDo
• Whiteboard
• Copilot
• Copilot Studio
• Phone System
• Third party M365 Add-ons (e.g. officeatwork, draftio, CodeTwo...)

Additional Tools

• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft Project
  

Identity Services

• App registrations
• Conditional Access
• Identity Protection
• SSPR (Self-Service Password Reset)
• Identity Governance ( Access Packages )
• Attribute Synchronisation
  

Client & Security

• Device Management ( Microsoft Intune)
• Defender for Endpoint
• Microsoft Cloud App Security
• Device Enrollment program (Apple DEP)
• Auto Pilot Deployment
• Hybrid Joined Devices
  

Applications

• App registrations
• Enterprise Applications
• Azure AD Application Proxy
• Access Packages
• Service Principals
• Logic App integrations & Connectors

Stores & Integrations

• Store for Business
• Microsoft Teams App Store
• Office 365 (Apps) Store
• Power Automate Connector restrictions
• Power App Connector

After the evaluation and analysis of the use of the listed Office 365 services, a first estimate of time and effort is now possible. Depending on the service used, a matrix can be created in the following step and it can be defined whether data migration is necessary for the service used or whether user communication is also necessary.

There is currently not really a tool on the market that can migrate all services 1-to-1 without any problems and limitations. Most third-party tools specialize in core services and offer comprehensive and good migration options.
Core Services are usually Exchange Online (Mailboxes, Settings, Contacts....), SharePoint / Teams (Sites, Groups, Planner, Team & Channel). Tools such as Quest on Demand or AvePoint Fly offer a sufficient range of functions for this.

However, other services should not be forgotten during migration planning, such as PowerBI, Forms, Stream, Bookings, Loop, etc., which can cause significant problems in the business after a tenant migration. Therefore, a detailed definition of the functional scope and migration scope per service is recommended in most cases. In the following blog posts I will describe the different services like Exchane Online and show migration scenarios and tools.

!INFO Due to service changes (new features or deactivations), the list may not reflect current services. Please verify the completeness of Office 365 services before using them.