SharePoint Online Tenant to Tenant Migration in a Simplistic Manner
SharePoint has become the primary collaboration platform for many organizations due to its advanced set of features. In the course of time, many businesses had to switch their Microsoft 365 tenants due to multiple reasons like mergers, acquisitions, re-branding their business, and many more. This arises the need for SharePoint Online tenant to tenant migration.
In such cases, a large amount of data needs to be migrated while making sure that no changes to the data integrity are made. SharePoint data like libraries and lists along with their permissions is on the list of migration.
If you also have the same requirement and looking for an effortless way for migrating SharePoint Online to another tenant, then this is the best guide for you.
Prerequisites to Note for SharePoint Online Tenant to Tenant Migration
As you might already know that data migrations are complex and time-consuming, so preparing your platform for migration is a must. This practice ensures that all our data is ready for migration and will not create any issues during the process. The prerequisites are as follows:
- Make sure you have an active Microsoft 365 subscription including SharePoint Online.
- Someone is a SharePoint Online admin and knows how to manage it.
- The admin has knowledge of SharePoint Sites structure and permissions in the source tenant.
- Identify a point of contact within the organization with whom you are going to contact if any issue persists.
- You have a certified team with proficient knowledge of SharePoint Online tenant to tenant migration.
- Run a proper assessment of the impact the users might face after completing the migration.
Possible Challenges During SharePoint Online Migration to Another Tenant
You might think that migrating data between two environments that are on the same platform would not be a difficult task. However, this is not the case as SharePoint contains a lot of significant data and is complex to migrate, there are certain challenges that you might face during the process.
- As SharePoint Online is a cloud-based solution, you can’t simply take the backup of the source environment and restore it on the new tenant.
- There are high chances of data loss even if the data is transferred from cloud to cloud. Additionally, a certain set of configurations and customizations are required as they were in the old tenant for seamless SharePoint Online tenant to tenant migration.
- Latency and performance are two factors on which the migration speed depends.
- When we talk about large-sized migrations, then a tried and tested solution is required to carry out migration as they are more efficient and make the job quite simple.
How to Migrate SharePoint Online to Another Tenant
In order to carry out successful migration, the administrators must follow a proven step-by-step process as it might minimize the chances of failure. Moreover, many experts suggest going with specialized tools as these tools help perform migration in an efficient way. You can either go with Microsoft’s SharePoint Migration Tool or any other third-party tool as all these tools use SharePoint API.
The steps for error-free migration from SharePoint Online from one tenant to another are as follows:
1. Prepare Source Environment
In this preparation step, you first need to evaluate and analyze the content. Here, you can determine the type and quantity of data that you are going to migrate. Moreover, you should also evaluate the size of packages on the basis of the number of files that you want to migrate. In SharePoint Online tenant to tenant migration, usually, the files migrate faster when compared to the list items and other items.
Thus, you can optimize your migration speed by identifying the number of files and project size.
2. Prepare Destination Environment
In this phase of SharePoint online migration from one tenant to another, the SharePoint administrators need to create accounts in the destination tenant. If you are building the destination tenant from scratch, then you need to create site libraries and schemas as well.
Furthermore, you need to replicate the document library structure and apply all customizations before proceeding with the migration.
3. Start SharePoint Online Tenant to Tenant Migration
This is when the time to start migrating SharePoint data comes and you choose your preferred solution for the same. As SharePoint holds very crucial data and as a business owner, you cannot afford to lose a single bit of data. Thus, going with a reliable solution is a must and what could be a better option than PCVITA SharePoint Online Migration Tool?
This effective solution is advanced enough to migrate libraries and lists along with permission settings. You can apply a date filter and migrate only desired data from the source SharePoint Online tenant. Furthermore, there is a smart dashboard that shows the real-time progress of how much has been migrated and which Site’s data is being migrated.
Not just this, but once the migration is over, the users can then export a report showing the count of migrated items. These reports are quite useful for future reference. You can download and run this software on Windows 11, 10 (64-bit), and Windows Server 2012 and 2016.
Also Read: Expert Tips to Migrate Document Library to Another Site
4. Post Migration Guide
Once you migrate SharePoint Online from one tenant to another successfully, the next step is to verify if complete data is migrated or not. If there are any errors or issues, then you can fix them at this stage. Once you are sure that everything is right, you can now start deactivating older SharePoint tenant for cost savings.
Conclusion
SharePoint Online tenant to tenant migration is not an as easy job as you think. There are certain challenges and prerequisites that you need to be prepared for to achieve a successful migration. Additionally, going with a result-oriented migration tool is a must as it will make the transition seamless. You can refer to this article and migrate your SharePoint data without facing any issues.