Migrating to SharePoint can be a complex endeavor. On paper it might appear that you can calculate roughly how long a migration will take based on the size of the data on the source and your internet upstream speed if you are migrating to SharePoint Online. Unfortunately, it isn’t as simple as that.

Let’s start with the source data, typically you are migrating from one of three sources: Network file shares, SharePoint on-premise, or an older SharePoint Online site. If you are migrating from network file shares, you have to analyze several components beyond the size of the file shares. You have to evaluate the number of files and folders, as well as the underlying permissions. Having a large amount of sub folders and files can cause a migration to take more time than one that has fewer folders/files, but has more overall data. Permissions are an important aspect as well, do you want to replicate the current file share permissions or will you be using new permissions in SharePoint. From a best practice perspective, it is recommended to clean up your file shares and implement an appropriate information architecture in SharePoint. Your current file shares most likely grew over time and may not be architected in the most optimal fashion.

There are several tools to choose from when migrating, such as free tools including Microsoft’s SharePoint Migration Tool, Migration Manager, as well as Mover. In addition, there are numerous third party tools ranging in price from $1000 to $3500. The pricing of these tools are usually based on the amount of data you are migrating, and the subscription to the tool usually ranges from 30 days to 1 year.

When migrating from SharePoint on-premise or SharePoint Online, you need to perform in-depth discovery to make sure you do a deep dive using storage metrics to analyze the sites/sub-sites, document libraries, lists and workflows. These sources will take longer than file shares because you are typically bringing over more metadata per items and at times, several versions for each file. Understanding the factors involved in your migration will help improve your migration experience.

If you are looking to discuss your migration or chat about SharePoint please feel free to contact us.