Microsoft Teams: миграция между тенантами

Organizations around the world rely on Microsoft Teams for effective communication and collaboration. As Teams usage has grown significantly since its release, Microsoft Teams migration has become an important part of inter-tenant migration.

Unfortunately, migrating Teams is quite difficult because it is an interface to many other Microsoft 365 components, including SharePoint, Exchange, and OneNote. 

Today we'll focus on how to best prepare for a Microsoft Teams inter-tenant migration and what to keep in mind when planning a migration for your organization.

Plan your Teams migration

Migration between Microsoft Teams tenants is very difficult to plan. One of the main problems is that Microsoft Teams content includes multiple types of content stored in many places. Here are some examples:

• Teams channels with conversations and files
• Standard and private channels
• Custom SharePoint sites
• Private chats 1×1
• Scheduler
• Group mailboxes
• Teams meetings, which contain chats, files, boards, and more.

Create a checklist for migrating between Microsoft Teams tenants

So how can you prepare for migration? Let's look at the following checklist.

• Define your initial Teams environment
• Create migration accounts in the target tenant;
• Test accounts and run migration tests;
• Prepare the target tenant before migration;
• Prepare a communication plan;
• Create a migration plan;
• Post-migration check
• What about Teams settings that can't be migrated using the migration tools?

Define your initial Teams environment

It is important to take inventory of the original tenant. Determine which commands are actively used and which are rarely used. You must also decide which commands are business critical and which should be removed or archived.

Create migration accounts in the target tenant

Your project may require more than one migration account. It is highly recommended that you create dedicated accounts as source and target Azure AD admin accounts. These accounts must not be owners or members of any Microsoft team. It is not recommended to use existing user accounts as the source and destination Azure AD admin accounts as they should be deleted for security reasons after the migration is complete.

The following permit and licensing requirements must be established:

1. 1. Azure AD admin accounts must have a Teams license.
   2. It is not recommended to change Azure AD admin accounts until the migration project is complete.
   3. Azure AD admin accounts must be granted the Global Administrator or Teams Administrator role for the tenants these accounts are used for.
   4. Azure AD admin accounts must be granted the application impersonation role for the tenants for whom these accounts are used.
   5. Accounts attached to existing teams must be mapped or migrated in the migration project.

Test accounts and run migration tests.

It is important to ensure that the migration will work correctly by checking at least the following:

• Team name
• Channel names
• Number of conversations and content
• Number of files with versions
• Additional SharePoint sites, lists, and libraries
• Scheduler of plans and tasks

Prepare the target tenant before migration

Prepare Teams before migrating content. Especially private channels - this can take up to 24 hours. Make sure all required users are assigned Microsoft Teams licenses.

Prepare a communication plan

Because Teams private chats can take a long time to migrate, it's important to create a communication plan. The types of elements specified in the communication plan are listed below:

Audience - Who is the communication intended for?
Method - how communication is carried out (for example, department meetings, staff presentations and informal meetings)
Purpose - what is the purpose of communication
Frequency - how often the communication will occur
Owner - who is responsible for creating the message.

Post-migration check

You can view the number of items migrated, and also spot check some migrations and ask your users to rate the content migration. 

What about Teams settings that can't be migrated using the migration tools?

Some settings and content cannot be transferred using the available APIs. Sometimes they require software to configure the client.

Several settings must be manually configured on the server, which may require significant technical expertise. 

Conclusion

Microsoft Teams is a complex application with multiple types of content to migrate. When you begin migrating Microsoft Teams between tenants, it's important to understand what's in your source Teams environment, set expectations for what will be migrated and how, create a detailed and realistic migration plan, and test the migration. It is highly recommended that you use a trusted CSP partner like Fanetech to handle the migration. 

Still have questions? Just Contact us and we will be happy to advise you.