SharePoint is an excellent platform for document storage, sharing, and team collaboration. It allows users to get rid of managing hundreds of data silos. It also enables them to edit and track progress on documents in real time.
Because of its unique benefits, organizations already have or want to migrate to SharePoint Online or upgrade to its latest version. “Over 300,000 companies worldwide are using SharePoint, and that is including 85% of Fortune 500 companies”
However, planning and executing its migration without disturbing the organizational workflow and productivity can be very challenging. In this blog, we will discuss the most common SharePoint migration challenges that organizations face during SharePoint migration. We will also discuss SharePoint migration strategies or approaches to address these common issues. Then we will list down the right solutions that will enable you to safely and efficiently migrate to this platform or its latest versions.
First, let’s discuss SharePoint’s premise for online migration challenges.
Time-Consuming and Complicated Process
SharePoint migration is a difficult process. You have to plan ahead and prioritize files for migration that you will require the most. Similarly, you have to calculate the time for which certain operations won’t be running. You also have to ensure seamless collaboration during migration to ensure that you encounter no unforeseen challenges during the process.
And with tight work schedules and deadlines, it can become difficult to properly plan and execute the migration. The migration might span over several areas if you have a sizable organizational infrastructure. This can become a problem as you might not be able to achieve the maximum operational efficiency offered by the platform and drive growth.
Solution
As the process can be quite complex, proper planning and strategizing can resolve migration-related challenges for you. You should know everything from your data sources to the data’s usefulness so that you can prepare yourself for Microsoft SharePoint migration. As a next step, you should prioritize your organizational operations.
Since the migration will affect the speed of the operations, you need to decide which operations are absolutely crucial for your organizational functionality. You can migrate the data associated with these operations on priority so that these operations don’t get affected.
Besides deciding on the strategy, you should hire external support for SharePoint migration. You should determine your needs and determine the service that caters to your specific requirements. The right service will offer you the support needed to ensure the SharePoint migration challenges of content from file shares, in a quick and seamless way without any complexities. You will experience ease in preserving and accessing data from file shares after migration.
Difficult Third-Party Solutions Migration
Besides your own solutions, tools, and documents, you might have third-party solutions to migrate as well. Their migration can be very difficult as they might be firmly integrated with other systems. These integrations might have proper tools and engines to integrate as well.
Solution size might be another problem that you might have to deal with. The bigger and more complex the solutions, the more difficult it will be to migrate them. Each solution might have a complex code, and migration of solution data to Microsoft SharePoint might require technical code changes. Therefore, while migrating data to this platform, you have to be extra careful while dealing with third-party solutions.
Solution
To ensure that the migration of third-party solutions doesn’t become a problem for you, you should hire SharePoint migration experts. Expert knowledge about third-party solutions and related integration tools and engines is necessary to smoothly migrate them.
Your teams working on these third-party solutions also need to be in contact with the migration experts all the time so that these solutions migrate seamlessly to your new environment. In this way, you will be able to leverage the maximum benefits of SharePoint online for your efficiency and growth.
Farm-to-Tenant Migration Complexities
Another one of the SharePoint migration issues is farm-to-tenant complexity. If you rely on on-farm solutions, migrating toward a tenancy setup can be very difficult. This is because all of your files and documents will be on-prem and integrated with other tools and solutions. Migrating to online SharePoint requires a lot of time and expertise.
To make the most of the capabilities of the online version, you will need to carve out a roadmap. To ensure an error-free process, you will need to calculate the risks and timeline for migration beforehand. Farm-to-tenant migration will require expertise for smooth execution.
Solution
For seamless migration, you should hire a team of experts. You should decide on your organizational requirements and then communicate them with the hiring team. The right team will ensure that there is minimal downtime during migration.
They will also employ the best tools that will address your SharePoint migration challenges. Therefore, to ensure timely and safe migration, it is better to rely on experts rather than in-house MS SharePoint managers.
Merging Complexities
To gain maximum benefits of SharePoint online, users need to manage it as one connected platform. However, if migration is not done properly, then users might not be able to achieve the expected results.
This is because some documents and tools will be on-prem, and others will be online. As a result, users won’t be able to execute specific operations on certain documents. This will impact the workflow and prevent employees from enhancing productivity.
Solution
A lack of in-house tools and expertise makes it difficult to merge SharePoint into one central platform for better coordination.
A dedicated team of SharePoint experts offers ease in merging multiple instances for your organization. This is because it uses different versions of this platform for various, separate functions. It offers a central, target platform for you to achieve the enhanced coordination your organization needs.
Poor Content Management
Finally, complicated platform management after migration causes content to get scattered. There’s no point in migrating to the platform if it is not going to make document management easy. Organizations typically fall into this trap immediately after migration.
About “34% of SharePoint users don’t feel like they are using its full capabilities” (i-VERVE). And one of the major reasons behind it is scattered data. Therefore, after migration, organizations have to reorganize the shared and stored information as soon as possible.
Solution
The right team of professionals brings in the experience needed for reorganizing stored information. It does so by managing content according to Microsoft’s best-recommended practices for site architecture.
This ensures that the users can access the sorted and categorized data whenever and wherever they need it. Sorted data also improves collaboration and makes the approval and compliance requirements much easier to fulfill these SharePoint migration challenges.
Conclusion
Although it can be quite challenging to migrate to SharePoint or its newer versions, the right team can make this process seamless for you. Safe and smooth migration can enhance organizational performance throughout the infrastructure. SharePoint’s premise to online migration challenges will continue but we must know how to deal with them.
If you are looking for premium migration services, Xavor has got you covered. With 25 years of excellence in delivery, we have empowered over 500 customers with end-to-end migration of their SharePoint. To leverage SharePoint for excellent content management and collaboration, reach out to us today.
Xavor offers SharePoint migration services – let us know your requirements, and we will do it for you. Contact us at [email protected] for further information.
FAQs
Q: What are the issues faced when migrating from SharePoint 2013 to Office 365?
When migrating from SharePoint 2013 to Office 365, common issues include data loss, compatibility problems, and complex configuration challenges.
Q: What are the limitations of SharePoint migration?
SharePoint migration may be limited by factors such as handling large datasets, accommodating customizations, and integrating third-party tools and apps.
Q: What are common issues in SharePoint?
Common SharePoint issues encompass permission conflicts, broken links, and performance bottlenecks, all of which can negatively impact user experience.
Q: What are the steps for SharePoint migration?
A: The steps for SharePoint migration typically involve:
- Assessing the current SharePoint environment.
- Planning data and site structure migration.
- Selecting appropriate migration tools and techniques.
- Testing migration in a sandbox environment.
- Executing the migration with minimal downtime.
- Validating data integrity and user access.
- Providing user training on the new SharePoint platform.