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Preparing and following a migration checklist during any email migration is indeed a good practice for any organization. Here, we are going to discuss the migration requirements for GroupWise to Office 365 migrations and also prepare a checklist to help users attain the most efficient, error-free, and precise migration.
Let us first understand the main reasons why any Novell GroupWise users tend to move to Office 365 platform.
- There is a lack of all-time accessibility in the GroupWise platform because of desktop-dependency. Office 365 can be accessed online from any geographical location using any web browser.
- Server maintenance with the GroupWise platform is a time-taking and tedious task, but it is not required for the Cloud platform.
- GroupWise platform lack advanced data security features, while Office 365 integrates multiple security features for effective data security.
- GroupWise platform lacks flexible business emailing facilities, whereas Office 365 has many.
- Business takeovers or merger and acquisitions of a GroupWise platform-based organization by another organization working on the Office 365 cloud platform necessitates migration.
These attractive attributes of the Cloud platform are responsible for many GroupWise users seeking migration to Office 365.
Before you select the migration tool or method, you need to know about certain requirements and processes that need to be performed in advance for uninterrupted migration.
We have divided the migration checklist for GroupWise to Office 365 into three sections.
- Pre-Migration Checklist
- GroupWise to Office 365 Data Migration with a Professional Utility
- Post-Migration Checklist
Pre-Migration Checklist
Consider each point carefully and meet these requirements before the migration.
- Prepare & Collect Data: Check the availability of the whole GroupWise data (local and shared), including mailbox folders, calendars, addresses, etc. and classify them according to migration requirements.
- Shared members: Collect the list of data shared in the GroupWise environment. Also, list users who use uses the shared data. It will help you maintain the continuity of data sharing even after the migration.
- Backup Calendar data: Try to have a backup for the calendar data.
- GroupWise rules info: To use the same rules on the Cloud platform, note the existing rules.
- Office 365 accounts creation: To move GroupWise mailbox data to specific Office 365 user accounts, you need to create the account as an administrator and then assign licenses to each.
- Global Administrator Credentials: You must have Office 365 account global administrator credentials along with the Novell GroupWise administrator credentials.
This part involves performing the GroupWise mailboxes data migration to the Office 365 platform using a third-party migrator tool. Try the most popular Kernel GroupWise to Office 365 migration tool to move a batch of GroupWise mailboxes to the Cloud. It facilitates the migration of archive items, the preview of data before migration, automated mapping with CSV files, and filtering. It also provides saving options other than Office 365, i.e., Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook PST file.
Download its free version from the website to have a personal experience and test this professional utility.
After the successful migration of GroupWise mailboxes to Office 365 with Kernel GroupWise to Office 365 tool, there are some post-migration actions which users should follow.
- Permissions: Assign sharing permissions to those users who had it earlier on the GroupWise platform.
- Recreate Rules: Create the rules again in the new Cloud platform taking reference from the notes taken earlier.
- Contacts: Confirm the migration of the address book contacts of GroupWise with complete attributes to the Cloud platform.
- Calendars: Check if Calendar events and details are migrated successfully.
- Tally data: Confirm that no data is missing after the migration to Office 365 by comparing with the source.
- GroupWise: Decide on the GroupWise account, whether to keep using it or uninstalling it from your system.
If you have followed the pre- and post-migration checklist for the GroupWise to Office 365 Migration, you need not worry about the difficulties of the migration. There will be fewer chances of manual errors due to the planning of tasks before and after the migration. Actual data migration is also flawless because of the use of a professional GroupWise to Office 365 migration tool.
Now, prepare the migration checklist and get ready to migrate Novell GroupWise mailboxes to Office 365.
Conclusion
Migration to the cloud platform from any on-premises environment like GroupWise seems to be attractive for its zero initial investments, universal accessibility, highly reliable security, and advanced features. We discussed the importance of preparing a migration checklist for a smooth, quick, and accurate Novell GroupWise to Office 365 migration.