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What are the free tools/options available from Microsoft for SharePoint migration?

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Introduction:

Gone are the days, we depend on 3rd party tools for SharePoint migration. This blog describes various free options available from Microsoft for SharePoint migration. Today Microsoft provides a variety of migration offerings such as Migration Manager, SharePoint Migration Tool, Mover, PowerShell, SharePoint Assessment Tool. In this blog we are going to explore these options used to migrate from On-Premise/Cloud to SharePoint Online.

Microsoft SharePoint Migration:

Microsoft supports to migrate data from following locations:

On-Premise to SharePoint Online Migration Options

Microsoft uses the two types of migration tools to migrate the data from On-premise server and file server.

SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT)

This tool support to migrate the data from On-premise SharePoint server, network and local file shares. Here list of supported on-premise server list

SharePoint Migration Tool supported features List

SharePoint Migration Tool supports almost all features to migrate from SharePoint server 2010, 2013. Microsoft releasing new versions by improving performance, user input and features. SPMT v3.4.119.2 can migrate SharePoint Server 2016 sites to SharePoint Online and they have made improvements in SharePoint Group Mapping.

In SPMT 3.4.119.3 version (Public Preview), improvements in teams pages migration and added selection feature when migrating file shares.

SharePoint Server 2010 & 2013 supported features:

Supported Description
File, folder, list items Supports migration of files, folders and lists
Permissions Separate settings are available to set file share permissions and the SharePoint on-premises permissions.
Versions We will preserve your file history, as determined by you.
Managed Metadata & Taxonomy SPMT supports the migration of content types and term stores. Global term store migration requires global tenant admin permissions.
Navigation & icons Site navigation for out of box sites is preserved and migrated
Site features We support an extensive number of site features
SharePoint web parts SPMT supports the migration of SharePoint web parts
Site migration SharePoint sites that are “out of the box”; sites that do not use any coding or 3rd party tools can be migrated
Site description Supports migration of files, folders and lists.
Incremental Separate settings are available to set file share permissions and the SharePoint on-premises permissions.
Pages We will preserve your file history, as determined by you.
Microsoft Teams SPMT supports the migration of content types and term stores. Global term store migration requires global tenant admin permissions.
Taxonomy migration Site navigation for out of box sites is preserved and migrated

SharePoint Migration Tool Limitation

SharePoint Migration tool have some limitations. They are

SharePoint Migration Tool Reports
The SharePoint Migration Tool generates reports to manage, audit and troubleshoot your migration process. The reports are Summary Report, Failure Summary Report, Task Report (Item Summary Report, Scan Report, Structure Report, Performance Report).

SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT)

SharePoint Migration Assessment tool is simple command line for premigration analysis, and this tool has two modes. They are

The tool runs without impacting your environment and this tool requires one to two days to complete the scan of your environment. After the scan is complete, you can find output files in the Logs directory. This is where you can find the summary and more detailed insights into the scenarios that could be impacted by migration.

Assessment (Default Mode)

The assessment process runs scans against the SharePoint farm and associated content and looking for issues that have been known to cause issues for customers migrating into SharePoint.

Identity Mapping

This Feature helps to assist you in Identity Migration. Identity Mapping process runs to generate a report of all the user and group identities that have access to your SharePoint environment and attempts to map those identities to Azure AD user and group identities. It performs Identity Mapping by running 3 different scans such as SharePoint Identity Scan, Active Directory Identity Scan and Azure Active Directory Identity Scan.

Other Cloud services to SharePoint Online Migration Options

For Online Migration, we need to use Mover. Recently Microsoft acquired the Mover company and using this tool we can migrate the file content from following location

When we migrate the files from above list sources, first the files are moved to temporary storage location, then the files are migrated into Office365 SharePoint site. Once files are moved to Office365 SharePoint sites, the temporary stored files are removed automatically.

Limitation

Using Mover tool, we can migrate the Office 365 SharePoint/OneDrive to another Office 365 SharePoint/OneDrive. This tool only migrates the File Content and does not support the other features like List, Webparts, Managed Metadata & Taxonomy, SharePoint page

How to migrate SharePoint site to another SharePoint site using PnP PowerShell cmdlet

Using PnP PowerShell module, we can export the SharePoint site as an XML or PnP File format. PnP PowerShell module also support to import option, using this feature we can import the existing exported xml or pnp file. In this import/export option most of the all features like Content Types, List, Pages, Workflow.

Here we will explain how to export and import the entire SharePoint site as XML

Export Entire Site

Using below simple cmdlets we can export entire site schema
Connect-PnPOnline -Url https://SourceTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/SourceSite
Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Out “C:\Sitename.xml” -Handlers All

Import Entire Site

Before Migration, Open the XML file text editor and change all Source Tenant URL to Target Tenant URL using “Change all” option. Similarly, we need to change the all Source Tenant Users to Target Tenant Users using “Change all” option. Once finished the above process, run the below cmdlets to import the site.
Connect-PnPOnline -Url https://TargetTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TargetSite

Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate -path “C:\Sitename.xml”

How to export and import the SharePoint site List with content as XML format

In previous method, we export all features with schema, but it will not add List item details in the xml, so we need to run another cmdlet to add List content to existing Xml file.

Export Site List

In below cmdlets we only export list information
Connect-PnPOnline -Url https://SourceTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/SourceSite Get-PnPProvisioningTemplate -Out “C:\Sitename.xml” -Handlers list

Adding the List content to exported XML file

When run the below cmdlets it will add the List content to already exported XML File
Add-PnPDataRowsToProvisioningTemplate -Path “ C:\Sitename.xml” -List “Required ListName” -Query “”

Import Site List

Before migration, open the XML file text editor and change all Source Tenant URL to Target Tenant URL using “Change all” option. Similarly, we need to change the all Source Tenant Users to Target Tenant Users using “Change all” option. Once finished the above process, run the below cmdlets to import the list in Target Tenant.
Connect-PnPOnline -Url https://TargetTenant.sharepoint.com/sites/TargetSite
Apply-PnPProvisioningTemplate -path “C:\Sitename.xml”

Reference
Microsoft provides the General Migration Performance Guidance - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/sharepoint-online-and-onedrive-migration-speed
SharePoint Migration Tool Performance Guidelines - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointmigration/spmt-performance-guidance

#Sharepoint Migrator #Migration