How to Migrate Teams from One Tenant to Another: Tips and Tricks

Summary: In this article, you will learn how to migrate Teams from one tenant to another with a step-by-step guide. However, in the era of the digital world, Microsoft Office 365 and Teams play an important role in every organization. But sometimes organizations need tenant-to-tenant migration in Teams. Moreover, this guide covers how to migrate Teams smoothly.

Table of Contents,

1. Why Should Users Migrate?
2. Tenant-to-Tenant Migration in Teams
3. How to choose the Right Method?
4. Bringing to the End

Microsoft Office 365 is a complete suite of productivity tools. It consists of many solutions, one of them is? Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is a leading platform that is used rapidly to increase communication and collaboration. However, it also enhances the teamwork between organizations and businesses around the world. Sometimes due to some circumstances such as a company merger, acquisition, rebranding, or some other business need. An organization needs to shift its tenant to another tenant. This process is called tenant-to-tenant migration, which is quite complex and challenging too. Since it is mandated to manage the integrity of data as well as the security and user experience.

The main purpose of this guide is to provide a step-by-step guide for tenant-to-tenant migration in Teams. Here we will discuss planning, pre-migration steps, execution, and post-migration activities in detail. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, this guide will be useful for you. So, let's get started with this complete guide to successfully migrating your Microsoft Teams from one tenant to another.

Why Should Users Migrate?

There are several reasons why users and organizations migrate their Microsoft Teams from one tenant to another. Some key reasons are as follows:

• Consolidation or Acquisition: Whenever two companies merge or acquire each other. The data present in the Teams or anywhere needs to be consolidated. In the process of consolidation, you need to migrate the Team data to the common tenant so that every employee works on the same platform.
• Rebranding or Business Restructuring: Sometimes the organization restructures or rebrands its business. In this process, data from the current tenant has to be migrated to the new tenant, which will reflect the new brand.
• Geographical Growth: When an organization expands its business operations to new geographical regions, it needs to migrate its Team data to new tenants.
• Improved Security and Compliance: Some organizations need to migrate their data to new tenants because of security and compliance. Therefore, by migrating to a new tenant, they can implement improved security features and compliance.

Due to all these reasons, users migrate Teams from one tenant to another. Moving toward the topic, let's get started with how to migrate Microsoft 365 Teams from one tenant to another without any complexity.

Tenant-to-Tenant Migration in Teams

It is now easy to migrate Microsoft Teams from one tenant to another. Firstly, you need to plan and decide which data needs to be migrated and when. After that, check for the necessary permissions.? Then execute the process of migrating Teams, channels, files, and settings. Then, follow the post-migration steps and verify everything.

Let us understand all these steps in detail one by one.

Step 1# Planning the Migration

You need to assess your current Team environment. However, it is important to know the volume of data, including? Teams, channels, files, and users, that needs to be transferred.

Define the goals and objectives of migration. And make sure that the data integrity and functionalities will remain the same after moving tenants.

Make a detailed migration plan and timeline. This plan will guide you step-by-step and ensure that the migration is smooth.

Since Teams are used for real-time collaboration, communication, planning of the project, meetings, sharing data, etc. However, Team migration can be complex if your planning is not right.?

Step 2# Pre-Migration Steps for Tenant to Tenant Migration

Before transferring your tenant from one tenant, you must prepare the source tenant. In it, since it is important to determine which data you need to transfer therefore the user needs to check user license and permissions. Also, identify the Teams and channels for migration. Moreover, check the compliance and security settings.

Note: Create a backup copy of all important data to avoid loss during migration.

Additionally, you need to focus on the factors that need to be considered while selecting any method of moving your data from one tenant to another. These factors include data volume, the complexity of the data, downtime, cost, and expertise.

Step 3# Choosing a Migration Method

The next step in how to migrate Teams from one tenant to another

is to follow by choosing the migration method.

Since there are two methods of tenant-to-tenant migration in Teams, one is manual, and the other makes use of automated tools. However, manuals are quite complex and time-consuming, especially for large datasets. And the chances of data loss are high. Therefore, every IT specialist opts for a professional tool. You can pick any according to your business requirements. One of the tools that I want to suggest is the Microsoft Teams migration tool.

Step 4# Setting Up the Destination Tenant

Before transferring your tenant from one tenant to another, you must prepare for destination tenants. However, you have to set the hierarchy structure of the Teams and the channel similar to the source Team manually. Also, look at the Microsoft Teams settings, and policies in the user account and make sure the license is working properly by checking compatibility of the destination account.

Step 5# Executing Migration Using Manual Method

Firstly, you need to manage and add users from source tenants. However, every team is associated with a SharePoint site that stores files, folders, and documents. So you can access the SharePoint site and download the desired data from there. And upload the data to the corresponding SharePoint of the target tenant. However, it is used only for files and folders. You can't migrate SharePoint pages or lists, even though there may be some data loss.

Now it's time to export chat history (Using PowerShell)

Make use of Powershell for exporting chat history, and make sure to allow the necessary permissions. Connect the source tenant to Exchange Online PowerShell. Run PowerShell commands to list the group mailbox and identify the specific mailbox. You can see commands here.

Export the chat history for every target team and save the data in .pst format. Now convert the PST file into any user-friendly format such as PDF. After that, upload the converted chat history document in the corresponding "General" folders of Teams SharePoint sites for the destination tenant. Therefore, you can successfully migrate Teams from one tenant to another.

Step 6# Follow the Post-Migration Practices

After the successful migration, you need to verify the data integrity and check the data completeness to see if there is any data loss.

After that, check the workings of the data, if there are any issues, you can resolve them and then inform the user about the changes. And guide them on the usage and changes of new tenants.

How to choose the Right Method?

Every user is in doubt about how to choose the appropriate method for their organization. However, users need to assess the specific requirements needed for their company and then research the different migration tools and methods that fulfill the requirements. After that, make a plan, conduct a pilot migration test, and then execute the migration.?

Bringing to the End

In this article, we will discuss how to migrate Teams from one tenant to another. However, migrating Microsoft Teams can be a challenging task, but with the right planning, preparation, and execution, you can complete it successfully. By following the steps given above, you can transfer your Teams smoothly and make sure that all the data and functionalities are smoothly transferred to the new tenant.