If you've ever done it, you know that migrating from one offering to another is never an easy feat. Beyond the "should I really press 'OK'?!" every step of the way, to the sheer time suck it can be, migrations are not for the faint of heart. Yet faint of heart you are not, because you've found yourself here. In this article, we will describe the step-by-step process you will follow when migrating from G Suite to Office 365. Have a snack, maybe do some jumping jacks and dive on in!
Things to Know Before You Begin
Limitations of a G Suite migration:
Google sets the threshold that only 2 GB may be transferred per day
What Will Be Migrated (Gmail API endpoints:):
Inbox
Folders/Labels
Muted Email (as regular email)
Contacts
Calendars (including links for Google Hangouts within calendar meetings)
Calendar Notifications
Note: Links for Google Hangouts are a new default feature added to Google Meeting. Microsoft Office 365 doesn't have the corresponding property to map. Therefore, when Migrating to Office 365, the links for Google Hangouts are added to the beginning of the meeting description body text in Office 365.
What Will Not Be Migrated:
-Calendar Reminders
-Appointments
-Chat message attachments
-Calendar Attachments
-Tasks
-Chats and chat history
-Google Groups for Business (including forums and collaborative inboxes)
-Google Categories (i.e., the Google category flags: Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums)
-Email attachments that are links to Google Drive
Some calendar colors
-Note: All color category meta tags are transferred over, but Office 365 does not have direct color mappings from Google G Suite, and so certain colors do not get mapped over, thus the colors are not displayed in Office 365 for the calendar entries.
Before you start, make sure that you:
Check that the Parent – Domain NS = SOA record by:
-Entering the domain
Checking that Parent – Domain NS = SOA record
-Have DNS access
-Have the First Name, Last Name, Username, Password, and Cellphone Number for the G-Suite admin owner
-Have the First Name, Last Name, Username, Cellphone Numbers for all the users
-Know which one of the users is an admin on G Suite
-Make sure that Google MFA has been turned Off for the admin user
-Make sure that Less secure app access is turned On
-Let's start! The entire process should take about 90 min.
Why you might want to migrate from G Suite to Microsoft Office 365
When it comes to migrating from either G Suite to Office 365 or Office 365 to G Suite, you need to know the differences between those two SaaS products. I will briefly go through them, so you might have a better understanding on what are the advantages and disadvantages of each one.
Starting with probably one of the most important differences – the cost of the service. In most cases G Suite will offer a lower price than Office 365. But if you want more detailed information, you might want to compare prices on official websites of Microsoft and Google. Another way to check the price is to send a request to the sales department of each corporation, for more detailed pricing information.
Another thing to have in mind is that there is a variance in how cloud storage works. There is a distinction on the maximum file size supported, on the maximum number of items on shared resources, on file-sharing possibilities and on few more things.
Depending on whether your company uses Office 365 apps or Google Docs, you probably already have chosen your designated platform. But if you didn’t you might be asking which service is better. There is no clear answer to that question. You need to answer that yourself, because it really depends on your business needs and preferences.
Microsoft provides you with a broad spectrum of productivity applications, including online apps of Office 365. Offering great compatibility with other Microsoft applications developed over the years. But so does Google with its Google Docs, the main difference is that Google Docs is an only online solution for work productivity, while Office 365 can be used both on-premise or in the cloud.
Migrate from G Suite to Office 365
The process to Migrate Email to Office 365 can be tricky due to some of the differences in how email works between the two. For example, Gmail has "Categories" where Outlook doesn't. With differences like this, it helps to build a strategy around your specific usage of Gmail and your planned usage of Office 365.
Steps of a Successful G Suite to Office 365 Migration are given below-
Understand the differences. It's important to detail the differences of your current G Suite configuration and how you want to configure those changes in Office 365. With how ambiguous this phase can be, we recommend building a strategy with a provider like us or conducting research in detail on the differences between both email platforms.
Prepare your new environment. Your new Office 365 environment is a fresh start for your infrastructure to be built from. We recommend spending some time outlining SharePoint site structure, folder structure, naming conventions, etc. If these are outlined prior to a move, we can help implement those changes during a migration.
Test it! With any type of technology... we always stress testing before moving to production. Test a small batch of users with these new rules and make sure you're happy with the outcome.
Cutover to Office 365. All users can not be set up on Office 365. With our migration solutions, we sync your old data to Office 365 with daily updates. This is in case new data shows up in G Suite after the migration.
Review configuration and policies of Office 365. At this point, we utilize a 50 item checklist we created that reviews security and efficiency for your organization prior to completion.
To learn about Migrate Email from Hosted Exchange to Office 365 visit, O365CloudExperts.
