SharePoint Migration: 4-Step Guide

Key insights

• 4-step plan: Follow four clear phases — Consideration, Audit, Design and preparation, and Wider workloads — to turn a migration into an opportunity to rebuild to best practice instead of copying old problems.
  
• Consideration: Define why you are migrating, set timelines and budgets, and pick a strategy such as lift-and-shift, big bang, or phased rollout with a small “guinea pig” pilot to validate the approach before scaling.
  
• Audit: Analyze source storage, site structure, and permissions to flag unsupported templates, custom features, checked-out files, inactive sites, broken inheritance, and unused content; use automated analysis to save time and reduce risk.
  
• Design and preparation: Plan hub, communication, and team sites rather than copying legacy layouts; map every site and access level in a spreadsheet, require owners to review content (many files can be deleted), and automate reviews where possible.
  
• Wider workloads: Treat tenant moves as more than SharePoint — plan OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Exchange mailboxes, calendars and contacts, and Power Platform apps; precreate users and groups for cross-tenant identity mapping and handle Power Apps/Flows manually or as bundled solutions when needed.
  
• Tools and Microsoft guidance: Use supported tools and Microsoft best practices — run pilots, use incremental migration with a single cutover for user changeover, and follow a task-based tool flow (install, create migration task, monitor, report); good tools cut weeks off delivery but only with solid planning.
  

Keywords

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