In this article, we will be giving an Exchange to Office 365 Migration Checklist. Manual migration of Exchange to Office 365 is not an easy task to perform. That is why you have to follow the steps really carefully. There are a few points that you need to keep in mind while migrating to Office 365 that we will be explaining here.
Always remember that it is absolutely necessary for you to have the expertise to perform a whole migration of Exchange to Office 365. The migration process is divided into two parts; the Pre-migration checklist and the Post-migration checklist. Both the lists have their points that are supposed to be taken under consideration for a trouble-free migration.
Find the checklist in the next segment.
Pre-Migration from Exchange to Office 365 Migration Checklist
- Preparing End-Users
To start the planning and preparation, you need to communicate properly with the members of the organization. There should not be even one user who doesn’t have complete information about the migration before starting the process. Everything including how the process will be executed, the impacts, and the changes that will be made in the organization should be told to every user.
Also, give full information about the considerations of the pre-migration check such as day and time management. This part of the exchange to Office 365 migration checklist is pretty important because if the planning isn’t right, then the migration will not be successful. There should be a discussion regarding the plan with the members to get different ideas. Once it is done, the administrator should make a proper project plan with no inconsistency.
- On-Premise Inventory Preparation
Prepare an inventory and list the following details:
- User mailboxes of shared sources’ name along with the sizes and email addresses.
- All the locations for data storage, client version including browser, OS, and Office apps, and configurations.
- The network settings which have the proxy and firewall, DNS hosts, internet connectivity, internal switches, available bandwidth, intranet sites etc.
- Also list the configured DNS records, instant messaging, online meetings, integrated application systems, etc.
The next point from the Exchange to Office 365 Migration checklist requires you to list down the things you should inspect.
- Inspection of the Current Environment
List the following things for a current environment inspection:
- Add the methods that are used to create or sync accounts
- All the licenses that will be needed for the user accounts
- Backup policies are required
- The capacity and the suitability of the network for migration
- Training that is required to give to the end users
- User accounts authentication criteria
- Requires upgrade on antivirus, firewall, routers
There is definitely the need to prepare the data that you want to migrate, making it another important point of the Exchange to Office 365 Migration checklist.
- Data Preparation for Migration
Before you start the migration process, ensure that the data is all ready to be migrated.
- Make sure the active directory is updated
- There are no unused accounts
- The source UPN and target environment UPN should match
- There should be valid email addresses in the proxy addresses attribute
- For future use, archiving facilities are required whether it is offline or online
- Requirement for compliance
- Setting Office 365 Account
This task is the last one when you are planning to transfer to Office 365.
- Get the subscription and license for Office 365
- Domain names should be verified
- Applications that you want to use should be configured along with security permissions.
- You can also sync directory for Office 365 and sign in with a single account as and if required
- Perform a migration process for testing
These are the points you need to keep in mind from the Exchange to Office 365 Migration checklist before you start the process.
Migration of Exchange to Office 365
Now, once you have done all that is mentioned in the section above, you can now migrate Exchange to Office 365. In order to do so, you can use a migration tool to make the process easy and secure. Use the Exchange to Office 365 Migration Tool for a reliable and quick migration with no hindrances. It has an option to export Exchange On-Premise user account data and provides support for multiple user migration altogether. The tool is an expert-recommended and a top-rated utility that has migrated a vast number of mailboxes.
Post Migration Points from Exchange to Office 365 Migration Checklist
- Redirecting Email and Caching
Once you finish migrating, it is necessary to redirect the email accounts of users to Office 365. You should also check all the folders from the Outlook profile once more to make sure the status for each folder is: “This folder is updated”.
- Assigning Licenses
It is a must that you assign licenses to the mailbox that has been migrated to Office 365. If not, the mailbox will be disabled within a time-frame of 30 days. It would be wise that the mailboxes are assigned licenses as soon as possible.
- Creation of Autodiscover DNS Records
This point is another important one from the Exchange to Office 365 Migration checklist. You should configure the Autodiscover DNS record to Office 365 as it helps to connect the user mailboxes to Outlook email clients along with mobile clients.
- Source Environment Decommission
As soon as you are sure that all the redirection of user accounts, assigning licenses, and other important tasks have been performed, you should decommission the old on-premise exchange account. It is suggested that you decommission only if there is no scope of synchronization with the source and the permanent migration target has been achieved.
Summarized
Manual migration of Exchange from Office 365 needs to be handled with care and expertise as it is a difficult task. Make sure you follow the right steps and do not miss anything. If you want to perform the migration process in the right way, make sure you consider all the points and tasks discussed in the Exchange to Office 365 Migration checklist. Both the Pre-migration and Post-migration checklists are crucial for a properly planned and executed migration of Exchange to Office 365.
