SharePoint migration is quite a vast process and a well-thought SharePoint Migration plan makes sure that the migration process meets all the expectations to deliver a great SharePoint Experience
Broadly categorizing, there are a variety of reasons that cause enterprises to go for a migration:
Why does a SharePoint Migration Plan come to the picture?
The Best SharePoint migration plans usually aim at carrying out the migration process without disrupting or disabling any of the ongoing active business processes. Planned Strategic Decision to back up technology alignments, cost-saving, upgrading controls and security, modernization, storage, collaboration needs, etc. or external factors such as a merger or a compliance requirement can do wonders in enhancing the performance of the organization as a whole.
Broadly categorizing, there are a variety of reasons that cause enterprises to go for a migration:
- End of Life of the current environment
- Increasing licensing costs of the current environment, with/without a corresponding increase in workforce
- Lack of modernization options in the current environment
- Compliance to the changing needs of the security and other Enterprise requirements
- Moving into a more open environment by breaking away from legacy
- Inclusion of new users or businesses into an existing system
- Mergers & acquisitions
- Server consolidation for the Enterprise-wide efficiency in data management
- Relocation of the data center, such as, from On-premise to the Cloud
- Workload balancing or other performance-related synchronization
Elements of a great SharePoint Migration Plan Template
In the fast-paced business world, people often rush to popular solutions without rationally analyzing them and the same is the case with SharePoint migration too. While taking up a quick decision is important as well, the most significant step that one forgets to take up is the personalized evaluation of the organizational business priorities, major pain points analysis, and goal setting. Such is the case for a SharePoint Migration plan where the appropriate approach should be to analyze the entire platform, be it site collections, topology, solutions, permissions, etc. Followed by thorough anticipation of the upcoming challenges that might occur during the migration process or maybe after it as its impact of adopting a new platform. A great SharePoint migration plan takes care of all these to provide an absolutely tension-free migration experience. A SharePoint migration plan is thus of vital importance to ensure a smooth execution that would be a defining factor to the success of the migration project and the adoption of a new platform. A good SharePoint Migration plan template should include elements such as:- Assessment of Requirements
- Realistic Estimation
- Choice of the platform
- Choosing the correct migration approach
- Pre-migration checklist
- Pilot test
- Slow period estimation for Scheduling
- Downtime compensation planning
- Analytics documentation
- Pre-migration crawling
- Training and staff planning
- Resource planning
- Security Planning
- Post-Migration Planning
- Governance planning
- Crisis and backup planning
Post-Migration Plan
Post-migration is a major part contributing to a migration’s success and thus needs to be taken care of beforehand as well. Validating the migrated content after the migration process is done ensures we don’t miss out on any important data due to any technical glitch. The pre-planning that needs to be carried out in order to contribute to the post-migration process ideally consists of-- Maintain a record of all the settings, templates, permissions and other customizations of the source site before the migration so that they can be tallied with those at the destination after the migration is done.
- Prepare a list of desired optimizations that the new SharePoint version might need to have according to your organizational needs
- Chalk out the alternate elements in the new SharePoint platform that can be used as enhanced substitutes to those elements of the older version that have been discontinued after that version.
- Keep a backup of the metadata that can be verified with the migrated metadata to eliminate any kind of data loss risks
- Set up appropriate schedules to take up incremental migration, if required.
Governance and Security Plan
Once the migration will be done, governance and best practices will play a major part to contribute to its success. We need to understand the current and expected post-migrational environment constraints and leverage SharePoint to the best of its capabilities to meet all kinds of governance and security needs be it audit, compliance, data retention requirements, Security plan, Governance policies, and so on. SharePoint is a permission-driven platform and the right permission distribution and restricted access can ensure greater efficiency and security in handling the platform. A SharePoint migrator with a dedicated security manager is thus a great option to opt for.Adoption and Training
People resist change until proven useful and so is the case with the employees of every organization. Therefore, proper planning needs to be undertaken to ensure that the new SharePoint platform is adaptable to all and if not, the arrangement for proper training is quite a good idea. The key is to plan ahead to let your users experience the new platform, allowing them enough time and support to adapt to it. This is essential to avoid disruption in their work.How can Saketa Help
As experienced SharePoint consultants, we understand that migration goes far beyond a mere transfer of features and content. We consider migration as a new opportunity for organizations to improve their SharePoint implementation substantially, thus foster their business processes, employee productivity, and overall performance. No two SharePoint migrations are the same and thus require careful individual planning, coordination and a fair amount of time. Both take a little while to get used to and adapt to new and better changes but with good planning and better choices, it can work wonders.Saketa SharePoint Migrator
Saketa SharePoint Migrator lets you migrate Limitless Data at Turbo Speed.
