When planning a migration to SharePoint from another content management system (CMS), you need to take care of several things. The first thing is to ensure the smooth transition of data from the source system to SharePoint. The second tip is to research and find the best practices while migrating.
This blog post will help you understand what changes you need to make in order for your users not to feel any difference after a successful SharePoint migration. These are some essential tips that will help you migrate successfully from any other CMS or file server to SharePoint.
Plan the User Experience
A successful SharePoint migration means that your users don’t even notice that anything has changed. This means keeping user training requirements and processes central to your planning.
You’ll need to keep user experience (UX) at the forefront of your planning to ensure a smooth transition from the source system to SharePoint.
For example, your users may be accustomed to uploading documents to a certain folder on their source system. They may have developed their own methods of storing and retrieving documents. They will need time to get used to uploading their files to a new location in SharePoint.
You should also keep in mind that during the transition period, the source system and SharePoint may both be online, which may cause confusion for your users. You will need to keep communication open with your users to ensure a smooth transition to SharePoint.
Develop a communication plan
When migrating from a source system to SharePoint, it’s important to keep your users informed about the changes. You can do this by creating communication plans for your migration.
You can also use webinars or virtual seminars to keep your users informed about the migration. If your CMS allows you to create a wall or a page for users to post questions, you can use that as well.
SharePoint Workspace and Migration Tool
The SharePoint Workspace Migration tool is a new feature in SharePoint Server 2019. It lets you migrate content from an existing file share, FTP server, or third-party source to SharePoint with no changes to your source system. You can also use this tool to migrate content from an on-premises SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online.
You can use the SharePoint Migration Tool to migrate the following content: – Libraries – The libraries and their content are migrated. – Lists – The list structure and data are migrated. – Site collections – Site collections and content are migrated.
However, due to some technical limitations, not all content in the source systems can be migrated to SharePoint. For example, if you are migrating from a file share, you can migrate the files and folders but not the permissions.
Estimate your storage requirements
The data management and governance planning stage is very important in any migration. You should keep in mind the amount of data that you need to migrate. You need to calculate the storage requirements for both the data in the source system and the migrated data in SharePoint.
To calculate the storage requirements, you can use the calculator available on the Microsoft website. This calculator will help you estimate the size of your data in SharePoint and the source system. You can also use a third-party tool to estimate the storage requirements.
Keep in mind that the amount of data that you migrate will affect the speed of your migration. The more data you migrate, the longer it will take to complete the migration.
Determine what you will keep in SharePoint and what will stay in the source system
You need to decide what data you will keep in the source system and what data you will migrate to SharePoint. This will help you in deciding which content types you should create in SharePoint.
You can migrate the following types of content from a source system to SharePoint. – Document libraries – Documents that are stored in SharePoint document libraries are migrated.
These may be Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, or any other file type that you want to store in SharePoint. – File folders – If you want to migrate the file folders from your source system to SharePoint, you can do that.
If you want to keep the file folders in the source system but migrate the content in those folders to SharePoint, that’s also possible. – Content types – You can migrate content types from your source system to SharePoint.
For example, if your source system has an approval process for documents, you can migrate that approval process to SharePoint as a content type.
Lock down your site architecture
After you migrate your data to SharePoint, you will have to create new content types and migrate existing content to those content types. You can create a site architecture that suits the way your organization works.
For example, if your source system has folders such as marketing and sales, you can create a site collection named Marketing and a site collection named Sales in SharePoint.
You can then create lists and libraries in those site collections to store your migrated data. You can also create content types in SharePoint to store your migrated data. You can create a content type for each folder in your source system. You can then migrate all the content from each folder to the corresponding content type in SharePoint.
You can also create a single content type for all the folders in your source system. You will then have to select the appropriate content type for each folder in SharePoint. This will allow you to migrate all the content from each folder to the corresponding content type in SharePoint.
Migrate Content (and only content) first.
You should not migrate site settings or site structure first. You should only migrate the content (whether documents, lists, or libraries) and then create the site structure and site settings.
If you are migrating to an existing site collection in SharePoint, you can do the following:
- Create a content database in the existing site collection.
- Create site collections in the content database using the new site collection settings.
- Create content types for each type of content in the site collection.
If you are migrating to a new site collection in SharePoint, you can do the following:
- Create a new site collection using the new site settings.
- Create content types for each type of content in the site collection.
- Create content databases in the site collection.
- Migrate the data to the content database.
- Create the site structure and site settings in the new site collection.
Try out the new user experience.
If you are migrating from an on-premises SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online, you should try out the new user experience in SharePoint Online before you actually migrate your content to SharePoint Online.
You can get the trial version of SharePoint Online from the Microsoft website. You can also use SharePoint 2019 in a sandbox environment to get a feel for the new user experience before migrating to SharePoint Online.
Wrapping up
A successful SharePoint migration is when you don’t even notice that anything has changed. You need to plan the user experience and make sure that your users are comfortable with the new system after the migration.
By following the best practices outlined in this blog, you can ensure that your migration is seamless and user-friendly. So why wait? Start your SharePoint migration journey today with Katpro Technologies.
