Notes from the Field | Workspace to Microsoft 365 Migrations
Ut est rerum omnium magister usus - Caesar
tl;dr
Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 migrations are an increasingly common request. Optimizing co-existence is also popular.
Want free help with your migration? Let's talk. Microsoft wants you to be successful; they incentivize ($$$) us to help.
Microsoft 365 Groups are your friend - create these to create your SharePoint library migration destination targets for Workspace shared drives.
3rd party migration software is a no-brainer. A combination of tools can be handy to achieve the best results while keeping costs down.
The Microsoft Momentum: Exceptional Management meets great SaaS and AI tech
The Drucker Institute has named Microsoft the world's best managed company four years running. This week, the firm passed Apple as our world's most valuable publicly traded company. The firm's efforts the past 5+ years has been impressive to witness. The people and teams have always been impressive.
In 2008, we were working to install Microsoft's Communications Server (instant messaging software) on-premises software for a government municipality. The project took the better part of a year and was for approximately 300 people. 2008 was also the year Google would role out video chat to ~100 million Gmail users over a few weeks.
💡 Google was clearly playing by a different set of rules.
In 2009, I wrote, "Google Apps has more in common with Google.com than Exchange Server or SharePoint and this presents a problem for traditional software vendors." Microsoft had a business model challenge. A challenge they met and then some. Google Workspace to
Workspace to Microsoft 365 Migration Notes
Cool Tools
We've done a lot of these migration projects and while every migration has some unique attributes, there are some common tools that are used for nearly every project.
If you're new to command line tools or working with API calls, ChatGPT and/or Google Bard (check if Bard is enabled/available to your Workspace users) are great helpers! ChatCPT allows you to create and save custom GPTs so your handy assistance is always ready to go! GPT stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer.
If you live mostly in the Microsoft world, this tool is effectively PowerShell for Google Workspace. It's often referred to as GAM, the name of original version. Two amazing people are the heroes behind this project Jay Lee and Ross Scroggs. I can't image how much value they've contributed to Google Workspace admins and consultants around the world. Amazing.
GAMADV-XTD3 is a free, open source command line tool for Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) Administrators to manage domain and user settings quickly and easily. GAMADV-XTD3 is built with Python 3. Documentation is here.
If you live in the Google world, PowerShell is effectively GAM for Microsoft 365 ;)
If you're unfamiliar, take some time with the documentation before you dive in. The most confusing aspect is the naming conventions. You can learn more here. In short, there's old PowerShell, new PowerShell, Exchange Online PowerShell, Microsoft Graph PowerShell, SharePoint PowerShell, etc. etc. etc. There's also a lot of documentation that references on-premises infrastructure and is not applicable to Microsoft 365.
If you're going to spend time working with Microsoft 365, PowerShell is absolutely worth embracing wholeheartedly.
If you're not old like me, chances are A RESTful web API is more your jam. Microsoft Graph API is for you, but it's not at a full PowerShell alternative (yet).
For the script kiddies in all of us, the Graph Explorer is a quick way to leverage the API's capabilities without setting up a more robust project environment. Postman is great for working with the API as well.
Since we're on the topic of command line tools, rclone is another program to add to the tool box. Rclone is a command-line program to manage files on cloud storage. It is a feature-rich alternative to cloud vendors' web storage interfaces. Over 70 cloud storage products support rclone including S3 object stores, business & consumer file storage services, as well as standard transfer protocols.
Extremely handy:
-> Backup (and encrypt) files to cloud storage
-> Restore (and decrypt) files from cloud storage
-> Mirror cloud data to other cloud services or locally
-> Migrate data to the cloud, or between cloud storage vendors
-> Mount multiple, encrypted, cached or diverse cloud storage as a disk
-> Union file systems together to present multiple local and/or cloud file systems
GAT+ (aka General Audit Tool for Workspace) is the only auditing tool available for Google Workspace that gathers such important information for all your Google Workspace users. Particularly, what files and folders each user owns and how they’re shared.
You can then use this information to re-establish these sharing permissions during the migration process.
CIPP is an open-source platform for folks managing multiple Microsoft 365 environments. CIPP (pronounced "sip") is the "CyberDrain Improved Partner Portal", a powerful Microsoft 365 multi-tenant management system.
Key Features
Central User Management: CIPP offers a simple user management interface, making it easy to add, edit, and delete users, off-board users, change calendar permissions, manage shared mailboxes, and more.
Easy Standardization: Deploy standards across your entire client base, ensuring tenants are always in the desired state. CIPP's alerting and best practices features help you provide the best experience for your clients.
Secure and Report: CIPP includes industry best-practice standards and integrations, allowing you to report on everything in your M365 tenants and secure your customers' environments.
Microsoft 365 Groups are your friend :)
The importance and utility of Microsoft 365 Groups cannot be overstated. Microsoft 365 Groups is THE foundational membership service that drives all teamwork across Microsoft 365.
A shared Outlook inbox
A shared calendar
A SharePoint document library
A Planner
A OneNote notebook
Power BI
Viva Engage (if the group was created from Viva Engage)
A Team (if the group was created from Teams)
Roadmap (if you have Project for the web)
Stream
Microsoft 365 Groups are part of your migration project regardless if you want them to be or not. People like Microsoft Teams, they're going to use the service.
Google Workspace My Drive = Microsoft 365 User OneDrive
Google Workspace Shared drives = Microsoft 365 Group created SharePoint document libraries
We typically migrate MyDrive files and permissions to Users' OneDrive and Shared drives to SharePoint. A Microsoft 365 Group has to have a SharePoint document library attached. The creation of a Microsoft Team always creates an associated Microsoft 365 Group. You want to create the Microsoft 365 Groups and connected resources as your migration "targets" before your migration. This requires a bit of planning to map out what's going to be connected to what. There are all kinds of creative ways to try and avoid the Microsoft 365 Group type in an attempt to simplify/streamline resources and/or user experience, etc. They are always coming back around - embrace them from day one or deal with them later when everything is much more complicated.
Migration Software
Migrations of any size often require multiple migration tools and services to get the best results.
Our favorite for migrating from Workspace to Microsoft to 365 is BitTitan's MigrationWiz.
If we're going from Microsoft 365 as the source and to Google Workspace as the destination, CloudM Migrate is our service of choice.
The Movebot team added support for email data migrations last year, they've been great at file migrations for years.
The cloudHQ service has come in handy more times than we can count! Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 have built-in migration services as well that can be handy for certain tasks; however, we always use dedicated, purpose-built migration services.
The Giant in Redmond is Ready to Party 🎉
Longevity in this business is about being able to reinvent yourself or invent the future. - Satya Nadella
The success of Microsoft's Executive Management Team as highlighted by the Drucker Institute, combined with the company’s continuous innovation in SaaS and AI technologies, presents a compelling migration case for many organizations. The journey from Workspace to Microsoft 365, while intricate, is made smoother with the right tools and strategies.
For further assistance or personalized advice on your migration journey, feel free to reach out. Let’s make your transition to Microsoft 365 as smooth and efficient as possible.
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