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OneDrive for Business, a new-age platform for storing and sharing data with people inside and outside an organization, is suitable for small businesses as well as large enterprises. One attraction of OneDrive for Business is that enterprise-level features are available even in basic subscription plans.
OneDrive for Business is more than just a cloud storage. With its versioning and sharing capabilities, it is a collaboration and productivity application that modern enterprises cannot miss in any way. With its multiple deployment options, scalability, and security features, OneDrive for Business ensures that businesses can concentrate on their core businesses without worrying about data storage and effective team collaboration.
Keys to Successful OneDrive Migration
Adopting OneDrive for Business in an organization is not an easy task. It involves careful requirement analysis and decision making before adopting this platform. The process of deploying this platform and making it functional in the organization is again a herculean task. However, doing some homework can enormously simplify and smoothen the process of SharePoint adoption. Here, we will provide a handy checklist to help you ease the various tasks involved in SharePoint adoption.
- Check whether you need OneDrive for Business
- Keep all the stakeholders in the decision-making loop
- Analyze your content
- Find possible issues and find their fixes
- Prepare OneDrive environment
- Train the end-users
Before you migrate, here are a few questions that you must get answers for to understand whether there’s an actual need to shift to OneDrive or not.
- Will migrating to OneDrive for Business help your organization?
- Can your content sharing needs be met simply through file shares and Exchange public folders?
- Are OneDrive personal accounts enough to meet the content sharing requirements of your employees?
- Do you expect to gain from investing in OneDrive for Business?
- Does it add to your productivity and improve your processes?
- Is the advanced feature of OneDrive beneficial for you?
- Can other similar platforms like Google Drive offer a better deal for you?
- Can your existing infrastructure and software complement what OneDrive for Business is going to bring?
Once you answer these questions, take a moment and analyze the scenario. If you get positive answers to these questions about adopting OneDrive for Business, then proceed to the further steps mentioned in the checklist.
As OneDrive for Business is going to fulfil data sharing and collaboration needs of all, everyone in the organization will have a role in its successful adoption. So, keep them involved and informed at every stage from the very beginning. Find their expectations, requirements, and concerns at the beginning itself to avoid making last minute changes. Define and communicate their roles and responsibilities in the various stages of the adoption process. If required, take help from experts and other resources available.
One can migrate data from different sources to OneDrive for Business. However, taking an inventory of your existing data is important. Make sure to perform a data cleanup in the source to get rid of irrelevant data before proceeding to work on the destination preparation. It is essential to prepare the target environment and map it with the source environment properly. It will help you abandon the redundant and unused content. Also, OneDrive has several restrictions regarding what can be migrated and what cannot be migrated.
For example, OneDrive allows you to migrate documents, file/folder structure, user-level file/folder permissions, all files under 15 GB in size, and metadata. However, embedded URLs, hidden attributes, explicit deny permissions, corrupt/damaged documents, files/folders exceeding the OneDrive size limitations, etc., are restricted from the transfer.
So, you have to find alternate plans in advance for the content that cannot be migrated.
OneDrive for Business has many limitations on the content it can host. If you are not aware of these limitations, you may face hurdles during the migration. But with the proper understanding of the platform, you can remediate most of them and skip the rest to have a smooth migration experience. Here are some restrictions that OneDrive for Business might put on during migration:
- Does not support long file/folder paths.
- Invalid characters in file/folder names.
- Restrict some file extensions from the migration.
Before starting the migration, you need to change all these and make the content ready for the migration.
Now it is time to prepare the target environment for a smooth migration. Administrators should create or provision new OneDrive accounts in the target as per the requirement to effectively map the source with the destination user accounts. When a SharePoint user browses OneDrive, the account is automatically provisioned, provided they are allowed to sign in and have the licenses assigned. But in certain situations, SharePoint administrators need to provision it. Another way to pre-provision is to use directory synchronization.
It is the simplest yet the most overlooked step of the OneDrive migration. It is good to keep end-users informed about the migration from the beginning itself and give them enough training to adapt to the new platform and utilize its features to the full potential. Without training, end users may use the platform like their old platform without realizing its actual potential, and the organization may not be able to reap the maximum benefits of OneDrive adoption. So, the organization can have training sessions for the end users. Also, it is good to have technical assistance ready for them whenever there is a requirement.
Migration is one of the toughest phases of OneDrive adoption. It is the phase in which you are going to face setbacks, even if you have done a lot of homework. So, better start the migration with a pilot batch to see if there are any problems. It is good to have a test environment identical to that of your real environment. You can study more about the issues you face during the test migration and fix them before the actual migration. Also, remove files and folders that are likely to cause issues during the migration and find some alternate ways to deal with them.
Another important decision at the migration stage may be regarding the selection of the migration tool. Though there are some manual methods to migrate OneDrive users can try a professional OneDrive migration solution like Kernel OneDrive Migration. This OneDrive migration tool helps you migrate data between OneDrive and various other sources like File Servers, Google Drive, etc.
It simplifies and automates the migration process and saves the effort and time required for the migration. It can be considered an essential tool for simple and effortless OneDrive migrations.
Even though your data is migrated by now, you need to invest efforts into post migration maintenance. This provides you with a scope of improvement to deliver maximum performance and productivity. You can ask your users for their feedback, monitor the destination to detect errors and any suspicious activity, and resolve them in real-time.
Conclusion
OneDrive for Business is a new age file hosting platform from Microsoft that aims at businesses of all sizes. However, OneDrive adoption is a complicated process that requires meticulous planning and precise execution, and requires technically sound people behind it. For accurate and hassle-free migration, use Kernel OneDrive Migration Tool that helps you migrate data as it is to the destination OneDrive environment. It features a simple and handy UI that makes it easier for everyone to shift their data, irrespective of their technical proficiency.
Frequently Asked Questions
A: To safely migrate data to OneDrive storage, follow the tips given below:
1. Always do a data cleanup to reduce burden from the destination storage.
2. Do not skip to inform users about the plan to migrate.
3. Take a detailed OneDrive for Business backup to secure the data.
4. Invest in post-migration care for efficient results.
A: Here are the challenges that you might encounter on the journey to OneDrive migration:
1. Risk of data corruption or missing data
2. Metadata and version history loss
3. Disruption in workflows due to business downtime
4. Slower migration performance due to throttling
