Moving an office to Microsoft 365 without losing a day
The best review a migration can get is that nobody noticed. We have moved about ninety offices onto Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, and the ones that went well all followed the same order.
1. Inventory first
Before anything moves, we list every mailbox, shared mailbox, distribution list, shared drive and the odd folder on someone’s desktop that turns out to hold the invoices. The migrations that go wrong are the ones where something was missed at this stage, not the ones where the technology failed.
2. Sign-in and security before mail
Accounts are created, multi-factor sign-in is switched on and everyone signs in once, a week before their mail moves. That way, on the day, the only thing that changes is where the mail lives.
3. Mail over a weekend, in two passes
The bulk of the mail copies on the Friday night. A second pass on the Sunday picks up anything that arrived since. Monday morning, the old system is switched to forward, and it stays available read-only for a month in case anyone needs to check.
4. Files after mail, not with it
Files move the following weekend. Moving both at once doubles what can go wrong and halves the attention on each. Shared drives are recreated with the same names and the same permissions, so people find things where they expect them.
5. An engineer in the office on both Mondays
Not on the phone. At a desk, where someone can walk up and say “where has my calendar gone”. Most questions take thirty seconds in person and ten minutes by ticket.
What it costs
On the Complete and Secure plans, a migration is part of onboarding. Licences are the only thing you pay Microsoft or Google for, and we true them up each month so you are paying for people, not seats.
