Overview:
Cloudiway’s SharePoint Site migration solution helps businesses perform technical migrations through a simple SaaS interface.
As a result, Site migrations require no additional software installation, and migrations can be performed securely and quickly.
This guide is aimed at experienced system administrators who are capable of connecting to remote systems and using a variety of administration tools.
1.1. Performance & Security
For more information about security, please refer to this article.
For more information about migration performance, please refer to this article.
1.2. License Management
Cloudiway platform automatically assigns the licenses, for more details regarding the license management, check out this page.
1.3. Delta Passes
Delta migration is a Cloudiway functionality that allows you to migrate incrementally. Changes are migrated during delta passes. Deletions are not propagated.
1.4. Support
Although we provide support for our own products, we do not provide support for third-party products such as PowerShell nor SharePoint administration.
If you are concerned you might have any difficulty completing these steps, please consider a solution with our consulting team, contact us. This will ensure a fast, cost-effective, and stress-free implementation.
2.1. How it works
Migration uses a mix of Graph APIs and CSOM calls. Therefore it requires to configure specific permissions at the source and at the target to execute Graph and CSOM calls.
2.2. Mapping Table
In SharePoint, there are permissions and metadata (createdby, modifiedby, etc.) that contain email addresses. During the migration, these addresses must be converted into target accounts.
To achieve this, Cloudiway uses a mapping table to perform the conversion.
Important: the mapping table must contain all the users and groups of the organization. Any missing email address will not be converted and would end up with the loss of permissions and metadata.
Prepare your mapping table for users and sites in CSV format, ready to upload later on.
2.3. Source Prerequisites
First, we recommend creating an account dedicated to the migration, that can be deleted once the migration is completed.
2.4. Target Prerequisites
We recommend creating an account dedicated to the migration, that can be deleted once the migration is completed.
Cloudiway automatically creates the Site collections and subsites, therefore they don’t have to exist prior to the migration. If they already exist, they will be used and data appended to them.
2.5. Azure Active Directory Application
Graph APIs calls are performed through an Azure Active Directory Application which is granted specific permissions.
You can either create an Azure Active Directory Application manually or let the platform create one for you.
Please consult our How To Create Azure Apps Registration page to create the Azure Active Directory Application and associated permissions.
To facilitate the SharePoint Site migration, the Cloudiway platform needs to be able to communicate with both your source and target domains. To do this, Cloudiway uses connectors. You will need to set up a connector for each source tenant and each target tenant. Please refer to this page to configure your connectors.
For large projects, it’s possible to create multiple connectors that will be used in parallel. Please contact Cloudiway consulting services if you need to set up this configuration.
Note: to test the migration, you can use a Trial License, please consult this article to assign a Trial License.
To perform the Site migration, navigate to Sites > Site List
You have 3 different ways to fill the list:
4.1.1. Option 1: Get Sites
The Get Sites entry under the MIGRATION menu connects to the source and retrieves the full list of Site collections and subsites.
Select the connector you want to connect, click on GET.
Note: you can monitor the progress of this task in the Global Logs.
Once the job is completed, the list displays all the sites. Next, you need to assign a target connector to all the entries.
Select the entries, click on MANAGE, then Assign Target.
Select the connector, click on Assign.
4.1.2. Option 2: CSV import
If you have a CSV file of all your sites, you can upload the file to Cloudiway.
The file must have the following fields in the header row:
SourceName;SourceId;SourceEmailAddress;SourceRecipientType;TargetName;TargetChannelName;TargetEmailAddress;TargetUrl;TargetRecipientType;ParentObjectId;TemplateName;Description;
Example: mysourcesitename;/sites/mysourcesiteurl;;ModernSite;destinationsitename;;;/sites/destinationsiteurl;ModernSite;0;STS#3;
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| SourceName | The site name |
| SourceId | The relative URL of the site |
| SourceEmailAddress | Not used, leave blank |
| SourceRecipientType | Enter Classic or ModernSite |
| TargetName | The target site name |
| TargetChannelName | Not used, leave blank |
| TargetEmailAddress | Not used, leave blank |
| TargetUrl | The relative URL at the target |
| TargetRecipientType | Enter Classic or ModernSite |
| ParentObjectId | Enter 0 |
| TemplateName | The name of the template |
| Description | Short description of the site (without special characters) |
Click on MANAGE, Import, select the CSV File, the Source and Target Connectors, then click Upload.
4.1.3. Option 3: Create an entry manually
Many of our first-time customers create a single Site for testing purposes.
Click on MANAGE, Create.
Click on OK.
Click on Mapping Table.
You can upload a User or Group list via CSV (use IMPORT) or CREATE your entries manually.
A template of CSV file is available on the platform when you click on IMPORT.
FirstName;LastName;SourceEmail;TargetEmail;DisplayName;EntryType;
EntryType: enter 0 for user, 1 for group.
FirstName and LastName: Leave blank for group.
At this point, you are ready to migrate.
You can review the settings in Global Settings.
Migration of Permissions: Disable it if you want to migrate the Site without permissions.
Migration of TermStore: Disable to improve performances if you are not using TermStore.
This feature reports information about the Source Site:
To Audit a Site, in Site List, select it and click on MIGRATION, Audit.
The pre-processing tool creates the Site at the target if it doesn’t already exist.
What does the pre-processing tool in detail?
At the target:
To pre-process a Site, in Site List, select it and click on MIGRATION, Pre-Processing.
The Site is now ready to be migrated.
Before starting the migration, you must run the pre-processing (see step above) of the Site.
To start the migration, in Site List, select it and click on MIGRATION, Start.
This will schedule the migration. The migration will start as soon as there is a free spot on the platform.
You can monitor your migration by clicking on the Site in the list.
Cloudiway provides an extensive knowledge base with many resources, including common error messages, video guides, and downloads.
Please visit the knowledgebase here: https://help.cloudiway.com/
