How to Use Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Mail Migration Advisor?

There are different ways to migrate emails or user accounts and mailboxes from your current email infrastructure, such as on-premises Exchange Server to Exchange Online or Microsoft 365 (Office 365). To make the migration task easy, Microsoft provides an advisor wizard called Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor. If you are planning to migrate user mailboxes and email services from your current email infrastructure to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 (Exchange Online), you can use the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor. It provides detailed instructions, scripts, and various other resource links that you may require to make changes to your infrastructure and migrate users to Microsoft 365. Below, we’ll be discussing the step-by-step process to use the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor.

Steps to Use Microsoft 365 and Office 365 Mail Migration Advisor

Before proceeding, you need the following:

• A Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription that includes Exchange Online.
• A global administrator account in Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization.

It is also important to prepare your Office 365 or Microsoft 365 environment before proceeding any further.

Once you have set up the Office 365 or Microsoft 365 tenant, you can follow the below steps to use the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor and migrate the user accounts and mailboxes to Exchange Online. ?

Step 1: Log In to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 Organization

After configuring the Office 365 or Microsoft 365 tenant, log in to the Exchange Online organization as a Global Administrator. You can refer to the Microsoft documentation to learn more and assign the Global Admin role to your or any other user account.

Step 2: Open Mail Migration Advisor and Choose Options

When you open the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor, you will see the options to select and set up the Exchange Online email service.

1. Create new email user accounts

Choose this option when you are starting a new organization and don't have any existing users or mailboxes to migrate. This option will help you with the instructions and resources to create new Microsoft 365 cloud email accounts and assign licenses to activate their mailboxes and email service.

After selecting the option, click Next. In the next screen, you can click on the Launch the Setup wizard option to automatically create new email user accounts. Alternatively, you can follow the two-step process to add your domain and users, and assign licenses.

2. Migrate email from other email systems to Exchange Online

Choose this option to find the best method to migrate your users’ email accounts and mailboxes from your current email server or provider to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 (Exchange Online). Click Next and then click on Help me decide. This opens a dropdown in a new sidebar where you can choose your existing on-premises email server or provider.?

If you choose Exchange Server 2003 or 2007, you will see further options that you can select. Based on your selection, the mail migration advisor will show the recommended migration path or method.

In the following instance, the advisor advises using the Staged Migration method based on the options selected as per the requirements of the organization.

If you are not sure of the current mailbox server or provider, choose Not sure and follow the instructions to identify the email account type. If it’s POP3 and does not support IMAP, you need to configure the email accounts in Outlook, export PST files, and then import the PST files into Office 365 or Microsoft 365.

3. Configure protection for cloud or on-premises mailboxes

Choose this option for setting up the Exchange Online Protection (EOP) email filtering feature. You can implement and use the feature to protect your organization against spam and malware.

Step 3: Perform the Migration by Following Recommended Method

Based on the options you choose, the mail migration wizard recommends the best migration path or method. Select the recommended migration option.

• Hybrid Migration
• Staged Migration
• Cutover Migration
• PST Import Method
• IMAP Migration

Clicking the Next button displays the informational links and further instructions on how to proceed and create a migration batch for the recommended migration method.

Conclusion

In this article, you learned how to use the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 mail migration advisor to efficiently migrate your users’ accounts and mailboxes from any supported email infrastructure to Exchange Online. If you are migrating from on-premises Exchange Server 2003, 2007, 2010, or later, you can follow Staged, Cutover, or Hybrid migration method, based on the server version and other specific requirements. You can also use an EDB to PST converter tool, such as Stellar Converter for EDB, to migrate user mailboxes from the EDB files on your on-premises Exchange Server to Microsoft 365 tenant directly in a few clicks. The software auto-maps the source and destination mailboxes, which expedites the migration process. Using the software, you can avoid the lengthy and cumbersome manual migration path and avoid issues and hassles encountered during the process.??