However, a successful migration is about more than just lifting and shifting files; it requires a strategic approach to your information architecture, security, and governance.
Here are the key considerations to ensure your migration is a success.
Don’t Migrate Disorganised Data
When migrating your data, it is often not the best option to perform a straight bulk migration. Don't migrate a mess.
From my experience, it is always best to carefully plan, then migrate only the data you need. This planning phase is where you design your information architecture. You must first understand the document workflow, secondly, understand how documents will be utilised, and finally, understand who uses what. This process is a core part of developing a successful migration strategy. After doing that, you are better informed on the information architecture that you will need to design, including the content types, metadata, and your keywords that make your new SharePoint environment intuitive and effective.
Design Your Security Strategy
To sum up my experience with migrations, there are a few key questions to ask yourself:
Does your data need to be accessible outside of your organisation?
Are there individual user storage requirements for personal files or working documents?
What is the organisation’s team structure?
What are the teams’ collaboration and file-sharing requirements?
Aside from personal file storage in OneDrive, you will most probably use SharePoint team sites or Microsoft Teams to organise your data. When correctly configured, Microsoft 365 gives you the capability to manage access to your sites, including the management of roles and permissions. When evaluating your security, you may also consider further measures, such as the level of auditing you need, as well as security grouping and integrations.
Establish a Clear Governance Plan
A successful SharePoint environment requires ongoing administration and control. This is known as governance. For any deployment of SharePoint, I’d recommend performing ongoing management and monitoring of usage. Use your organisations existing processes and procedures, or put them in place.
For ongoing management, you might delegate control to content, team, or project owners. Be sure to provide content managers training on the moderation and management of their respective sites. During onboarding, use defined procedures to assign roles and permissions to users. Likewise, develop a robust user exit strategy.
Design Your Backup & Data Protection Strategy
Microsoft manages the back-end Microsoft 365 infrastructure and delivers a 99.9% uptime guarantee. With that aspect covered, your attention must turn to data protection. Microsoft is responsible for their platform; you are responsible for your data.1 This means protecting against accidental data deletion, corruption, or security breaches is an important consideration.
To Summarise
In summary, the planning and understanding of existing usage is key to designing your new systems in the right way. Perhaps the most important consideration, and it’s a lesson learnt from working with many migrations, is this: don’t be tempted to move all of your data. Despite the treasure trove you may have amassed, unless it’s organised, don’t move it.
Consider partnering for your move
Migrating to the cloud can be complex, and using an experienced partner is the best way to ensure it’s done right. If your organisation is considering the move to Microsoft 365, setting up SharePoint, or upgrading an existing environment, our team can help. Take a look at our Microsoft 365 services or give us a shout.
