Migrating your legacy SharePoint platform to SharePoint Online

Microsoft SharePoint has been a popular enterprise content management and collaboration platform for many organizations. With continuous updates and new versions, it becomes crucial for businesses to stay up-to-date with the latest features and improvements. However, with each new version comes the eventual end of life support for older versions. In this blog post, we will provide an overview of SharePoint versions, from SharePoint 2010 and newer, their end of life support dates, and a practical guide to migrating to SharePoint Online using Atlas by ClearPeople.

SharePoint Versions and End of Life Support Dates

A Practical Guide to Migrating to SharePoint Online with Atlas by ClearPeople

SharePoint Online is a cloud-based service that offers the latest features and capabilities, as well as regular updates and patches. Migrating to SharePoint Online can be a complex process, but with the help of Atlas by ClearPeople in your target environment, it becomes more manageable. Atlas is a digital workplace platform that simplifies SharePoint Online migration and enhances the user experience.

Here is a step-by-step guide to a successful migration:

1. Assess Your Current Environment

Before beginning the migration process, it's essential to understand your current SharePoint environment. This includes assessing the size, complexity, and customizations. You should also identify any third-party tools or integrations that need to be addressed during the migration process.

Things to consider include:

• Do you just need documents migrated? (If yes, that simplifies things a lot)
• Are you able to pinpoint what needs to be migrated vs what can be deleted or archived? (If yes, that simplifies things a lot)
• Can you avoid migrating any custom features or functions? (If yes, that simplifies things a lot)

2. Plan Your Migration Strategy

A well-structured migration plan is crucial to a successful migration. This includes setting goals and objectives, determining the migration scope, and identifying potential risks and mitigation strategies. You should also consider whether a phased approach or a "big bang" migration is more appropriate for your organization.

3. Set Up Your SharePoint Online Environment

Before migrating your content, you'll need to set up your SharePoint Online environment. This includes configuring tenant settings, creating site collections, and setting up user permissions. Atlas by ClearPeople can help simplify this process by providing a provisioning tool to deliver a pre-built workspace structure and best-practice configurations - ready as a target environment for your migration to take place.

Part of this process also includes reviewing your new Information Architecture. A migration is often an opportunity to reset and leverage all the current best practices and lessons-learned.

4. Test and Migrate Your Content

Before performing the actual migration, it's essential to test the process to identify any potential issues. This can be done by migrating a small subset of content and validating that it functions as expected in the new environment.

Once the testing is successful, you can proceed with the incremental or full migration, depending on the approach and tools being used. 

Please note that sometimes a migration can be as simple as dragging and documents into a target document library structure, and other times it can be as complex a full-blown implementation project with multiple migration tools, scripts and tools working in tandem. Hence why steps 1 and 2 above are crucial.

5. Train Your Users and Launch Your New SharePoint Online Environment

To ensure a smooth transition, it's crucial to train your users on the new SharePoint Online environment and Atlas features. With Atlas, ClearPeople offers comprehensive training and support resources to help your team get up to speed quickly. Once training is complete, and champions have been on-boarded, you can officially launch your new SharePoint Online environment.

6. Monitor and Optimize

After the migration is complete, it's essential to monitor your new environment and optimize as needed. Atlas provides powerful analytics and reporting tools that help you identify areas for improvement and measure the success of your migration.

Conclusion

Migrating to SharePoint Online on Microsoft 365 is a strategic move for organizations looking to leverage the latest features and capabilities of the platform.

With the help of Atlas by ClearPeople, the migration process becomes more manageable and efficient. By following the steps outlined in this guide, your organization can successfully transition to SharePoint Online and enjoy the benefits of a modern, cloud-based collaboration platform.

Sources:

• Microsoft SharePoint
• Atlas by ClearPeople
• SharePoint End of Life Support Dates