By Jill Romford on Thursday, 30 September 2021
Category: Digital Transformation

SharePoint Migration Plan Template, Checklist & Best Practices

SharePoint Migration Plan template is a must-have for organizations. Microsoft SharePoint is often regarded as one of the most effective collaboration tools. The software has been dubbed as the most secure, dependable, scalable, and efficient program in the commercial sector.

Microsoft wants SharePoint to provide users with a "contemporary experience" that is easy to use — and the most current version does not disappoint.

The advantages of SharePoint are numerous, yet moving to SharePoint can be difficult. To assist users, we created a SharePoint Migration Plan Template to make the transition as simple as possible.  How To Audit SharePoint? UPDATED 2021 – A Complete Guide

SharePoint Content Migration Plan & Templates

A perfect SharePoint content migration plan template often attempts to complete the conversion process without affecting or disabling any active business operations. SharePoint has many useful features, including metadata. A planned strategic decision to back up technology alignments, cost-saving, updating controls and security, modernization, storage, collaboration demands, and so on, or external causes such as a merger or a compliance requirement can do wonders for the organization's overall performance.

In today's fast-paced corporate environment, people frequently rush to popular solutions without critically examining them, and SharePoint migration is no exception. While making a quick decision is vital, the most important phase that many people overlook is the tailored assessment of the organizational business priorities, primary pain points analysis, and target formulation.

Such is the situation with a SharePoint Migration strategy, where the best method should be to assess the complete platform, including site collections, topologies, solutions, permissions, and so on. Following that, comprehensive anticipation of the impending issues that may develop during the migration process or afterward as a result of the impact of adopting a new platform is required. A superb SharePoint migration plan takes care of all of these details to ensure a completely stress-free migrating experience.

SharePoint content Migration plan template must have the following elements:

The first step in your SharePoint Migration roadmap is to create a plan. Your SharePoint migration strategy should literally be a plan for how you want to carry out your SharePoint Migration. You should think about the files you wish to move. This is your opportunity to work with departments to get rid of unnecessary information and acquaint them with the notion of using the new environment. There are numerous circumstances where content cannot or should not be brought over because it is outdated or no longer required. As a result, planning what material to move should be the first and most critical stage in any SharePoint migration.

When it comes to project plans, here is what you need to create a SharePoint migration project plan:

Recognize challenges to your business

​Additional functionalities in SharePoint online / Office 365 may be able to cover gaps in your business. Before proceeding, it is critical to identify the business concerns that a SharePoint transfer may solve, as well as how switching to a SharePoint environment will help your overall business. The following are some of the most common causes for a SharePoint migration:

Whatever the cause, your SharePoint transfer strategy must be in line with your business objectives.

Make a plan according to your future strategy

When considering SharePoint migration, evaluate your overall business direction as well as how your organization is currently running. Consider how changes in workflow automation, project management strategies, project management platforms, and organizational structure may affect information flow.

You must address the following essential questions in your SharePoint migration plan:


What to include in your Sharepoint migration steps, if you think about :

Proactively pose these questions to your team members to acquire a complete view of your business environment. This will also assist you in identifying any custom solutions that you might require. If you need a website migration plan template, download the example here.

Website migration project plan template

Download the website migration project plan template for free

Gather a migration team

Hiring a specialist or a migration manager to oversee the transfer process can save you time and money, as expert hands are required for a smooth and effective shift.

Teams are required for the following SharePoint transfer processes:

Find internal IT specialists who can assist at every phase, in addition to bringing on a specialist.

SharePoint Online Migration Best Practices

SharePoint online migration best practices can help you to save time and resources. SharePoint is one of Microsoft's most popular information management and collaboration systems. It provides sophisticated intranet capabilities, a better document management system, communities, blogs, news and conversations, and a variety of other important features that bring the entire organization together and allow them to work more efficiently and productively.

SharePoint introduces a slew of new features and enhancements with each new release, keeping up with modern corporate requirements. Many earlier functionalities, such as InfoPath forms and sandboxed solutions, were deprecated as a result of the adoption of new features. This necessitates upgrading from an older version of SharePoint to a newer one in order to fully utilize all new features and adhere to current standards. AgilityPortal is a great option if you are looking for SharePoint alternatives.

Content analysis

The first step is to develop a content inventory and decide what to migrate. You can move relevant content that is still in use to Office 365 while discarding old or irrelevant content.

You should also consider the customizations that are in place in the on-premises system. Determine what you truly require. Just because you required customization in the past does not imply that it is still required in the transfer to SharePoint Online.

If you're unsure whether customization is still in use, turn off the functionality in the old system and see if users contact IT complaining that they can't use it. If this occurs, simply reverse the process and include it in the migration.

Set up the online environment 

The second step is to configure the online environment. Use the following questions: How will the future state look? How will the old program interface with the new? Is it necessary to update existing content? Do you require fresh leadership?

For this best practice, you should assess how your organization presently utilizes SharePoint and learn about the benefits of a SharePoint Online migration. It would be best if you collaborated with site owners to document the many business use cases and components that they employ and then remap those based on what SharePoint Online has to offer today.

Migration process

It's time to make a move once you've decided how to set up the new environment. However, it is critical to develop a migration schedule and to communicate the progress of the migration to users on a regular basis.

Divide the migration into logical, achievable segments, possibly by department or location. This allows the migration team to thoroughly test and teach end-users in stages, avoiding being swamped by any potential difficulties that end users discover if all sites migrate at the same time. It also allows the migration team to deploy new tools and services, as well as provide adequate time to train and support users, resulting in higher user engagement.

SharePoint Online Migration Checklist 

A thorough SharePoint online migration checklist is essential for making educated decisions throughout a migration. The more information you have, the easier it will be to organize your migration and meet your deadlines.

SharePoint Migration Questionnaire 

The SharePoint migration questionnaire can be used to assess the existing SharePoint environment for migration and collect essential information in order to suggest the best migration support model.

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