Microsoft 365 Tenant Migration Best Practices For Enterprises

Microsoft 365 tenant to tenant migration for enterprises often translates into large-scale tenant migration associated with corporate undertakings, such as divestitures, mergers, acquisitions, etc. But regardless of the use case of your enterprise organization, it is crucial to follow standardized practices to ensure your IT team and other decision makers of your organization do not go wrong in any area. 

Here are some of the best practices that help streamline Microsoft 365 tenant migrations of enterprise scale:  

Migrate with a Microsoft Partner  

When researching and assessing third-party migration solutions providers, it is best to work with a Microsoft Partner, such as CloudFuze, a Microsoft Gold Partner. Collaborating with a Microsoft Partner can equip your organization to address some of the major complexities of performing enterprise-scale cross-tenant migrations, such as:  

• Migrating user accounts to a new domain 
• Addressing API rate limitations 
• Reconciling policy conflicts 

Plan the SOW for the Entire Tenant Migration 

Rather than treating the migration of the Microsoft 365 apps in scope, such as OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Outlook, etc, as separate or individual entities, consider them collectively and plan the scope of work for the migration accordingly. 

With this approach, you can simplify the entire process of SOW finalization, budget approvals, and legal checks. And the quicker these steps move, the earlier the needle can move in kicking off each component of the Office 365 tenant migration, such as: 

• OneDrive to OneDrive migration 
• SharePoint to SharePoint migration 
• Outlook to Outlook migration  
• Teams to Teams migration  

Optimize the Tenant Migration Timeline  

Timelines are crucial to Microsoft 365 cross-tenant migration projects, especially for enterprises that are undergoing corporate-level reorganizations. The timeline for the migration completion must be in sync with the progress of the reorganization activity, e.g., M&As or divestitures.  

Refer to this Microsoft 365 migration timeline planner as a starting point to understand the key milestones of your organization’s tenant migration and plan the timeline accordingly.  

Perform the Migration with a Phased Approach  

The chances of the entire Microsoft 365 tenant migration going haywire can be high if performed in a single event. With a single-go approach, it becomes complex and challenging to: 

• Finalize the workload to migrate between the tenants 
• Map a high volume of user accounts in scope 
• Adhere to the API calls limitations 
• Validate user accounts and their data as and when they migrate 
• Comprehend the incremental changes that build during the one-time migration 

Therefore, it is critical to plan and perform every component of the Microsoft 365 tenant migration in a phased way, especially if the workload to be migrated is of a high volume. 

Plan Whether to Migrate Incremental Changes Entirely or Selectively  

Similar to regular cloud office migrations, delta sync is crucial in Microsoft 365 tenant migrations of all scales. However, it is not a must to perform a comprehensive delta sync unless needed. With a selective approach, you can transfer incremental changes to only specific user accounts.  

This approach works well in enabling your organization to wrap up the tenant migration and the cutover on time, which eventually helps keep the migration project in sync with the merger, acquisition, or any other form of reorganization.  

Apart from this brief guide, you can also utilize Microsoft’s tenant migration architecture model to get more insights into planning your organization’s Microsoft tenant migration.

Apart from this brief guide, you can also utilize Microsoft’s tenant migration architecture model to get more insights into planning your organization’s Microsoft tenant migration.