A University faced a significant challenge when it came to migrating student content from a legacy Microsoft 365 tenant to a new tenant. With the absence of a native migration tool for tenant-to-tenant migrations, they turned to risual, an expert IT consulting firm, to facilitate the seamless transfer of student OneDrive accounts. This case note highlights the solution provided by risual, the benefits it brought to the client, and the subsequent steps taken to streamline their IT infrastructure.
The Challenge
The University relied on two separate Microsoft 365 tenants to host staff and student content. To consolidate their IT ecosystem and enhance efficiency, they needed to migrate students’ OneDrive accounts from the legacy tenant to the new tenant. This presented a complex technical challenge due to the lack of a native migration tool for tenant-to-tenant migrations.
The Collaborative Solution
To address the migration challenge, risual leveraged ShareGate, a powerful migration tool, to facilitate the transfer of student OneDrive accounts. The process began with the provisioning of new OneDrive accounts for students who hadn’t already been assigned one. Within the destination OneDrive accounts, a dedicated folder was created to hold the migrated content securely. To map the source/legacy student OneDrive accounts to their corresponding destination/new OneDrive accounts, an Excel file was utilised. This mapping file was then integrated into a PowerShell script, utilising the ShareGate module, to execute the migrations efficiently and accurately.
Unlocking Benefits
By utilising risual’s expertise and ShareGate’s migration capabilities, the University were able to unlock numerous benefits throughout the migration process. Students were able to continue using their OneDrive accounts in the new tenant seamlessly, as all migrations were conducted to a designated folder created specifically to hold the migrated content. This allowed uninterrupted access to their files while the migration activity was underway. Moreover, by successfully completing the technical aspects of the migration, risual enabled the university to focus on essential student communication and support, ensuring minimal disruption to their academic activities.
Moving closer to a Unified Tenant
As a result of the migration project, the client took a significant step towards achieving a unified IT infrastructure. By consolidating student OneDrive accounts into a single tenant, the university’s IT management became more streamlined, reducing complexities and enhancing efficiency. This consolidation simplifies ongoing maintenance efforts, enabling the university to allocate resources effectively and improve overall operational effectiveness.
Next Steps
Building upon the successful migration, the University plans to transition the source/legacy OneDrive accounts to read-only status, with the intention of eventually deleting them. This proactive measure ensures data integrity while allowing students to seamlessly access their files in the new tenant. By taking these steps, the client can further streamline their IT environment and optimise resource allocation. Through collaboration with risual, the university accomplished a seamless migration of student OneDrive accounts from a legacy Microsoft 365 tenant to a new tenant. By leveraging the capabilities of ShareGate and risual’s expertise, the university ensured uninterrupted access to student content throughout the migration process. With a unified tenant closer to becoming a reality, the client can optimise their IT infrastructure, simplify maintenance efforts, and enhance operational effectiveness. The successful migration project not only empowers the university’s IT ecosystem but also allows them to focus on delivering superior education and support to their students.
