Teams Migrations

Migrating to Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a dynamic digital collaboration tool, and enterprises around the world are moving towards this core Microsoft software at full speed to increase collaboration across their remote workforce. If you are looking for a Teams migration at your company, you have come to the right site to start your planning process. You will learn key starting points for your Teams migration, considerations for tenant-to-tenant moves, and specific factors during Skype for Business upgrades.

If your organization is looking to upgrade to Teams or expand its current footprint with Teams, Total Solutions has the expertise to help. Total Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Partner in Collaboration and has a staff of expert Consultants and a proven process for managing digital technology. Total Solutions is the partner of choice when it comes to implementing Microsoft Teams.

Planning a move to Microsoft Teams? Make sure you have a plan and checklist of content.

There are many types of Teams migrations that you may be concerned with:

Migrating your existing Teams to a new tenant
Upgrading Skype for Business to Teams
Converting from Slack to Teams
Upgrading from a legacy software program to a modern M365 cloud

Migrating Teams -Where to start

The most important part of any cloud migration is starting with a plan. No matter what your scenario we highly recommend taking an inventory of the components necessary for your Teams migration. This would include Users, Data and third-party connections to other enterprise systems. Since Teams is a collaboration tool, there are many benefits to integrating with SharePoint for your files and data. Getting this architecture on paper is critical so that you can begin to map dependencies.

One challenge of a Teams migration is that currently there is not a proven automated solution to migrate Teams. There are however powerful software tools in this space that are working on making this process more seamless. Our consulting team is constantly examining the market to insure we are up to date on the latest and greatest offerings. However, as of Q4 2020, there is no silver bullet.

Teams Migration Planning

If you are already on Teams but moving between tenants, you can at least map the migration components logically between systems. The challenge with moving Teams is that data may be stored in many different locations across the M365 cloud – including SharePoint, Azure, Exchange, Stream and OneDrive. While you are doing your inventory, its also beneficial to clean any unneeded artifacts out of your tenant prior to the migration. Activities would include:

Take an inventory of your current teams and document what is being used
Eliminate any unnecessary data that you do not need to migrate
Create a plan to move the remaining data and content

As you develop your inventory, your plan might include the following:

Recreate Teams manually in the new environment
Assign the same members and permissions in each new Team
Move any important documents into the corresponding SharePoint site
Move any important conversations or videos to Exchange and Stream

When moving permissions, there are PowerShell scrips available to both extract and apply permissions to a Team dynamically. This is especially important for Teams that have a diverse set of permissions across channels and content.

To create a fully comprehensive migration plan takes dedication and effort. Total Solutions has a proven service process to help with organizations struggling to migrate Teams. Learn more about our process here.

Upgrading from Skype for Business? Don’t forget licensing.

If your organization is still utilizing Skype for Business, the upgrade to Teams is a process that you should plan on extending in phases and over time. In our experience, the “shotgun” approach of doing a full rollout has the potential to be disastrous on end user continuity and can be disruptive to the business. The first step in your upgrade is making sure you have a license strategy. Enterprise agreements are typically locked in over a long period of time, and if your EA is up for renewal you will be getting a heavy dose of Teams during the selling discussions with Microsoft. In fact, every cloud subscription available currently includes Teams.

The important consideration is what additional licensing will your organization need in conjunction with Teams? For example, if dashboard reporting is of interest to executives you may want to consider licenses for Power BI. If SharePoint is your primary data storage application, you may want to consider an E3 or E5 license for additional storage capacity.

Teams Migration Planning

Total Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Partner for Collaboration and Content. Our dedicated team of experts has the expertise to help your organization rollout Teams, and more importantly maximize the value you are getting from this dynamic application. Speak with a Solution Architect today and request a free consultation if you are interested in working with us.

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