SharePoint Permissions Migration: A Complete Guide

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Summary: Migrating SharePoint sites between tenants is not just about upgrading server versions. It also includes migrating SharePoint permissions, metadata, and version history to let you manage users’ access to add, modify, or delete a document, site, list, or library. Understanding how to handle SharePoint permissions migration will help you execute a smooth transfer.

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SharePoint permissions grant access to the user for performing specific actions within the SharePoint site. The SharePoint administrator assigns the permissions at the site or site content levels. When a user has a View Only permission, they can only view the file and not create or edit it. However, during migration, if these permissions are not migrated from the source or a user is not allowed the necessary rights, the site content becomes inaccessible at the destination.

Therefore, you need to migrate SharePoint permissions in the exact folder hierarchy to map the users correctly at the destination site in SharePoint.

Know about SharePoint permissions and their types

Initiating the process to migrate SharePoint permission requires a proper action plan before execution. Learn about the diverse permissions in SharePoint, so you can provide specific users with the right permission to maintain data security. Before starting the migration, you should understand the basic concept of SharePoint Online permissions.

Fine-grained permissions(limited access): When the administrator assigns permission at a granular level to a securable object that falls under the fine-grained permissions. For example, a permission assigned to a specific file in a large library, list, or site, allows the user with in-depth control over the SharePoint data for better customization.
Permission level: Permission levels are the set of permissions assigned to users allowing them to perform different tasks. An excellent example of permission level is Read permission, which allows users with rights like opening a file, reading a file, viewing pages of the file, viewing versions of a file, etc. All these rights are required to access a file in SharePoint.
SharePoint group: A SharePoint Group streamlines assigning permission to a whole group rather than individually to each user. Each SharePoint Group comes with default permissions for owners, visitors, members, etc. It is far better to create a Group with specific users and assign all Permission at once, which saves time.
User: A user is a single entity in SharePoint, and it is better to assign permission to a user through groups since it will be difficult to monitor each user.
Securable object: A securable object is a file, document, folder, list, library, site, etc., affected by permissions. The administrator can assign item-level, folder-level, and site-level permissions for a variety of controls.

Getting complete information about these SharePoint Online permissions and then planning your migration method is beneficial.

What permissions do you need for SharePoint migration?

When you plan to migrate SharePoint permissions with data, there are certain permissions that should be migrated along with it to allow users with access to it post transition. Here are some permissions that you need to migrate.

Default permissions levels

Default permissions levels include permissions which authorize a user to perform multiple actions on the objects. Here is a brief list of default permissions levels:

Permission Level	Permission Included	Description
View Only	View Items, View Versions, View Pages, Browse User Information	User can view application pages and related items.
Limited Access	View Application pages, Browse User information, User Remote Interface	User can access the shared resource
Read	View Items, Open Items, View Versions, View pages	User can view pages, list items, and download documents
Contribute	Add Items, Edit Items, Delete Items, Edit Personal User Information, Add Personal Web parts, Remove Personal Web parts, Update personal web parts	User can edit user information, delete version in lists and libraries.
Edit	Manage Lists, Contribute Permissions	User can manage lists.
Design	Add and Customize pages, Apply Style, Edit permissions	User can Add, View, Update, Delete, Approve, and Customize items or pages
Full Control	All Permissions	User has full control

Note: A user can customize the permission settings for the initial five levels. To change the permission levels for Limited Access and Full Control, you can make individual permissions unavailable for a complete web application.

User permissions

User permissions in SharePoint are further categorized into 3 categories – list permissions, site permissions, and personal permissions.

List permissions

Some of the prominent list permissions are:

Permission	Permissions Included	Description
Manage Lists	Edit, Design, Manage Hierarchy	User can create and delete lists, add or remove columns or views of a list
Override List Behaviors	Design, Full Control	User can check a document for another user and can read/edit their terms
Add Items	Edit, Design, Full Control	User can add items lists, and add documents to libraries
Delete Versions	Contribute Edit, Design, Full Control	User can delete previous versions of list items or documents
Create Alerts	Read, Edit, Design, Full Control	User can create alerts
View Application Pages	Full Control	User can view application pages and enumerate lists

Site permissions

Site Permissions are applied to site items. Some important permissions include the following:

Permission	Permissions Included	Description
Create Subsites	Full Control	User can create subsites, meeting workspace site, and document workspace site.
Manage Web Site	Full Control	User can perform complete administrative tasks for the site
Add and Customize Pages	Design, Full Control	User can add, modify, or delete HTML pages or the site
Manage Alerts	Full Control	User can manage alerts for all users of the website
Open	All	User can open a website, list, or folder to access site items
View Pages	Read, Contribute, Edit, Design, Full Control	User can view pages in a website

Personal Permissions

Personal permissions are attached to single objects and items in the SharePoint.

Permission	Permissions Included	Description
Manage Personal Views	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can create, change, and delete personal views of lists
Add/Remove Personal Web Parts	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can add/remove personal web parts on a web part page
Update Personal Web Parts	Contribute, Edit, Full Control	User can update Web Parts

What are the risks associated with SharePoint permission migration?

Here are some risks that are linked to SharePoint migration and can disrupt the workflow of an organization:

Oversharing: Incorrect mapping of SharePoint permissions carries the risk of providing access of the sensitive data to unintended users. This will put the security of your site content at risk.
Inheritance issues: Migrating complex SharePoint environment with an intricated permission hierarchy often ends up in failed replication. This causes broken permission inheritance, leaving loopholes, which often provide access to the wrong users.
Orphan users: Users from the source that aren’t mapped properly to their destination equivalent users or groups, will lose their access. Such users are considered orphaned users and have inactive accounts.
External access: If the source has external users with allowed access and you haven’t mapped them correctly, the users will lose access upon migration.
Lower productivity: When permissions are not available to the users, they will not be able to access the site and its contents. This will eventually result in lower productivity.

Simple Way to Migrate SharePoint Permissions?

Once you’ve complete information about the data you need to migrate and various SharePoint Online permissions, then migrating permissions is an easy job. However, due to the lack of manual methods to migrate SharePoint permissions from one site or one SharePoint version to another, you need a professional tool.

Using a tool for migrating permissions while with the site content reduces the complexities faced during and after SharePoint migration and directly migrating the permissions and respective data. With a SharePoint migration tool like Kernel Migration for SharePoint, you can migrate complete sites, lists, and libraries from SharePoint 2010 to 2013, SharePoint 2010 to 2016, and SharePoint 2013 to 2016.

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When you’re migrating from or to a SharePoint site, check the Migrate Permissions option. This will migrate all the permissions in the same order as available at the source to avoid any loopholes.

Note: If you have checked the Migrate Permissions, then you can also check the second option of Remap Users/Groups. It will help you to map users SharePoint accounts.

Click Add New Mapping button and add Source Username and Destination Username in the respective boxes. Then click OK.
Finally, you can see that the source and the destination are selected to migrate the permissions directly.

Conclusion

Neglecting migration of SharePoint permissions while migrating other data can cause issues later when accessing the site. You’ll have to manage & customize all permissions after the process is complete, and this process is very time-consuming. Use SharePoint migration tool to avoid getting into this situation and migrate all of the SharePoint data along with the permissions. It also supports migrating Windows file system to SharePoint, public folder to SharePoint, and file system to Google Drive/OneDrive for business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question. How to confirm whether the SharePoint permissions migration was successful?

Answer. To assure that SharePoint permissions are correctly migrated, open your SharePoint site and click on the Gear (settings) icon. Now select Site permissions and then Advanced permission settings. Click on Check Permissions and enter a user name to see the assigned permissions.
This will help you confirm if the permissions are correctly mapped and migrated.

Question. What will happen to the old SharePoint users and groups after migration?

Answer. After SharePoint migration, old users are not migrated to the new environment automatically. To move them, you need to create a user mapping file with source user mapped to their destination equivalent. Users that aren’t properly mapped or have a corresponding user in the destination are considered orphans. Such users will not have access to the data in the new environment.