This page is information for our clients of what to expect for migration of emails and data (where applicable)
Last updated on 06/07/2021 20:45
This page is information for our clients of what to expect for migration of emails and data (where applicable)
Last updated on 06/07/2021 20:45
Although our migration service is optional for anyone moving their email and also data from online file storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox, without carrying out a migration your new mailboxes will basically start empty.
We use a migration service to carry out that part of the process, which connects to both the existing and new mailboxes, transferring everything that it can. At times, there can be odd items that can’t be migrated, such as corrupted items. Manual migrations generally take far more time (and money), tend not to be able to copy like-for-like and give no real report of the migration process or any errors.
Depending on the amount of items in existing mailboxes, clients can choose to migrate only selected mailboxes or none, but rely on forwarding or printing any existing emails they want to have going forward.
Before the date for migration is agreed, the number of mailboxes, email addresses and email aliases would have been agreed.
Any mailboxes that are not going to be used going forward can still be migrated but stored/archived in Shared Mailboxes.
Clients should ensure that they do not cancel or give notice to any existing providers until the migration/changeover has been completed successfully.
It is generally recommended that before any migration, any mailboxes set up on mobile devices are removed.
Before we carry out any migration or changeover to Microsoft 365, we will require the following information:
Changes necessary to the domain DNS settings can take up to 72 hours to populate around the internet, although generally we see a large proportion of these altered within the first few hours. Likewise during the migration process users won’t have full access to incoming emails and existing ones if we have had to change passwords, for example.
For these reasons and to reduce the disruption to users and the business, apart from exceptional circumstances, we carry out migrations/changeovers starting at the end of the working day on a Friday. Sometimes this needs to be altered if we are reliant on a third party to update the domain name’s DNS settings.
By some time on the Saturday, some of the smaller migrations would have completed and generally the new mailboxes will be receiving new incoming emails. At this stage, for users that have an urgent need to access their emails, we can give out details for them to access the email via Outlook on the Web. However at this stage, often the settings to allow setup in Outlook on the desktop or mobile devices may not yet be available.
Once we have proven that mailboxes are as required and migrations are either completed or in progress, we generally send login details and passwords to pre-arranged contacts securely either via WhatsApp or encrypted documents.
Once the migration/changeover is complete, if users are carrying out some or all of their setups themselves, we have lots of information available on our page Microsoft 365 Setup Guides
Sometimes even by the Monday, large mailboxes may still be in the process of being migrated behind the scenes. Also, any items that fail might have to be repeated or settings changed to allow as much to migrate as possible. However users will still be able to use their new email. The migration processes are based on a hierarchy of importance such that folders such as the Inbox are migrated first – migrations that are still to be completed therefore generally do not adversely affect users.
It is recommended that users make sure they are happy before then considering removal or cancellation of pre-existing email services.
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