Create a plan before moving to SharePoint

Are you planning to move data to Microsoft SharePoint Online? Stop doing it before you have a solid plan. This guide is a collection of experiences from several projects of moving data from fileshares to SharePoint.

This Guide is the first article in my series of why SharePoint is my passion, my mission is to share my knowledge and experience of SharePoint.

Creating a migration team

1. Do not only staff the project with the middle managers, involve the users that daily work with the data you plan to move.
2. Educate the projectteam what the benefits and tools that is the foundation of SharePoint.
3. Make it clear to the members that they are ambassadors of change to assist their coworkers after the implementation of SharePoint.
4. Decide who will be the stakeholders.
5. Define the target to be reached and setup a plan on when you will perform the move.

Planning

1. Start by performing a scan of data you have and the permissions for the files.
2. Decide what to bring along when you move, don't bring the wastebin with you when you move.
3. Restructure your data as you want to have it, the structure you have is old and not many understand the structure.
4. Go back to number 2 to rethink what data you need. Do this until you are satisfied.
5. Do you still have data that you are not sure of if you need? Put it in boxes(folders) that you move to the basement=not searchable in Microsoft 365.
6. Do you need folders? SharePoint is webbased, do you find folders in an online shop or Netflix? Use metadata (metadata will be explained in future articles) instead of folders to make data more searchable and easy to find.
7. Create a plan for permission and decide if you need to use security labels. (Will be explained in a future article.
8. Show the plan to the stakeholders.
9. Perform a testmigration to verify the time you need to move.
10. Educate the users, this can be with an online training. Make it mandatory to attend.
11. Inform the users the week before the move.
12. After the move you should have a kickoff presentation and be prepared to have the ambassadors ready to assist.
13. Plan for a review of the outcome and create a plan for the future.