3 Tips to Help Your It Department Perform an Office 365 Migration
Are you guilty of saying, "oh, I'm sure IT can handle that!" when any big project appears on your work radar? Migrating some of your local services to the crowd is worthwhile, but it can also be a significant undertaking. Giving your IT team the support they need eases their workload while ensuring that the migration proceeds smoothly and quickly.
These three tips will help your IT team carry out a successful migration to Microsoft Office 365, no matter the size of your business.
1. Understand Your Existing Technology
Are you migrating your current services from another cloud provider or local hosting solutions? Are you planning on utilizing Office 365's full suite of technologies, or will you keep some local services? Your existing technology plays a significant role in how your IT team will carry out any migration, along with the level of disruption that you'll experience along the way.
If you're moving from an existing exchange server, you can typically elect to migrate data at once or in multiple stages. You should always work with your IT team to establish the acceptable level of disruption and choose either a staged or hybrid migration if employees must keep access to existing services as you move to Office 365.
2. Assess Related Services
Third-party services are common in many companies that use exchange servers or other local technologies. These technologies may or may not have upgraded versions that can integrate with Office 365, and your IT team may need to perform additional work to establish similar functionality. Always make sure you fully assess any third-party services that rely on or work with your existing servers.
Note that migration can also be an excellent opportunity to move other services into the cloud. If some existing third-party technologies will not work with Office 365, it's worth having your IT department consider newer, cloud-based alternatives.
3. Don't Ignore Training Requirements
While Office 365 should be relatively easy to use for employees already familiar with Microsoft technologies, there is often still some learning curve. Depending on how many services you're migrating to the cloud, your IT department may need to develop a plan to familiarize employees with the new systems. Developing this plan before you begin can save you significant headaches in the future.
Likewise, ensure that your IT staff are also up to speed on the newer technologies. Since IT members will need to respond to help tickets from other employees, they'll need to be both familiar and comfortable with Office 365. Giving them the time they need to learn these new systems can ease the transition for all employees in your business.
For more information about Microsoft 365 migration tips, contact a local business near you.