Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration- A Simple Guide

Office 365 is a cloud-based productivity suite offered by Microsoft. It provides a wide range of tools and services to its users like email, calendar, contacts, etc to make its users more efficient and effective. However, as the organization grows and changes performing Office 365 tenant to tenant migration might become a requirement. 

In this article, we are going to talk about the same and look at the various methods and strategies you can use for it. 

Pre-Migration Checklist for Microsoft 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration 

Before we start the migration process it is important to take care of some basic things. One of the first things that you have to understand is the specific data that needs to be migrated. Once it is identified also make sure the things given below are also taken care of. 

Preparing the Domain 

Preparing the domain for migration is the first thing that you have to do when performing Office 365 tenant to tenant migration. Use the steps given below to do the same. 

• Make sure that there are enough licenses for the destination account. 
• An account with admin privileges should be created at both source and destination. 
• According to the data on the source account and your requirement on the destination account make different types of mailboxes like user mailboxes, resource mailboxes, and distribution groups on the destination tenant.

Verifying the Domain 

After preparing the domain we have to verify that domain. 

• First, we have to make sure to perform target domain verification in Office 365. 
• Add the source domain in the destination tenant and also add a TXT record in DNS to receive the new emails in the new destination Office 365 account

Schedule Migration 

In this step, we have to create a list of users that you want to migrate to the new tenant and make a CSV file to map the source users to the destination. Do also make sure that the directory sync is disabled on the source account so that changes are not done to the source tenant. 

Source Domain 

There are some things you need to perform on the source domain before the migration process. 

• Halt the flow of emails to the source account by pointing the MX record to the destination account. 
• Delete the primary email domain from the source account. 
• Reset the email to the default values. 
• Using the Lync Admin portal remove the Lync licenses from the source account. 
• Reset things like distribution lists, rooms, and resource emails to their default domain. 
• Finally, make sure that the secondary email addresses are also removed. 

Destination Domain 

Make sure these things are done on the destination account before performing Office 365 tenant to tenant migration process. 

• Activate the new accounts and assign the required licenses to them. 
• Verify that the MX record points to the new Office 365 address. 
• Set the destination domain as the primary email address. 
• Enable Auto-discovery CNAME. 

Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Process 

This is the most important section of the migration where the data is transferred to the new account. There are many methods including manual methods that you can use for the same. But using the manual method is not recommended. 

This is because the manual methods are long and complicated and also possess the risk of data loss if the user fails to execute them properly. Trustworthy Office 365 Migration Tool is one of the most reliable and best tools you can use for this purpose. 

It is the best one in the industry preferred by a great number of It experts and Office 365 admins alike. The tool provides users with advanced features such as the ability to filter out data based on dates, the option to prioritize users, and much more. Let us look at how to use this professional tool 

Steps for Professional Tool 

• From the setup screen select Office 365 option as the source and the destination. 
• After that, you can see the workload section below it. Select the types of data you want to transfer to the new account. 
• Apply a date filter if required. 
• Now go to the source section and enter the details of the source account like the admin email and application id and click on the validate button. 
• After this go to the destination section and enter the required credentials of the destination account like admin email and application id and click on validate button.
• To get the data of the users go to the users tab. 
• From here click on the fetch users option to get the details of users from the source automatically. 
• You can also import the details of these users manually by downloading the provided template inserting the required data into and then importing it back into the tool. 
• Once the users are imported into the tool they will be listed on the screen. Source users can be mapped to the destination one by one. 
• The user mapping can also be done in batches using a CSV file with the same data. 
• You can set passwords separately for all the accounts or a default password for Office 365 tenant to tenant migration. 
• Click on the validate button to verify the required permissions and click on the start migration button to begin the process. 

Once the migration process is completed you can download the summary report to ensure that all the data has been transferred to the destination account. If there are any data that failed to transfer then you can retry migration just for that item. The tool also does provide the option to re-run the whole migration if required. For any new data that has arrived in the source account, you can use delta migration. 

Also Read: How to Easily Migrate Teams From One Tenant to Another

Conclusion 

Office 365 tenant to tenant migration is a complex process that requires careful planning and execution. In this article, we have talked about the different things you have to take care of before the migration process and different migration processes. 

Hence for a safe and smooth experience, we suggest using the above-mentioned tool. 

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