Planning an SOW for a Complete Dropbox to Office 365 Migration

Before your company kickstarts Dropbox to Office 365 migration, it is essential to know what the migration goals are, its deliverables, and the key components to consider during the migration.

It is highly recommended to coordinate with the data migration vendor to create an SOW (Scope Of Work) that helps stay aligned with the migration goals and be on the same page about the various project elements.

This post delves into the various components to be taken into account when preparing an SOW with the migration vendor during a Dropbox to Office 365 migration.

Data Assessment

When your company advances in migrating Dropbox files to Office 365, the SOW must mention in detail what kind of data must be migrated. Some cases involve only documents, while some require emails, messages, links, etc., to be migrated to the destination cloud platform.

Choose the right cloud data migration tool capable of handling these specific migration needs to meet your organizational migration goals.

Email Migration

An SOW document must define in detail about the email migration service that is planned to occur in conjunction with Dropbox to Office 365 migration. For example, moving from the email system used with Dropbox to Microsoft Outlook.

In the SOW, specify which email accounts to transfer and what email attributes, like calendar, contacts, to-do lists, etc., must be included during the migration.

To know more in detail about how to choose the best email migration tool, you can refer to this post.

File Features to Migrate

When your organization plans to transfer Dropbox to Microsoft 365, the SOW must highlight the file features to be migrated, such as version history, timestamps, inline comments, etc.

This provides transparency in understanding what file features need to be transferred and avoid confusions while evaluating the final data in the destination cloud.

Links Migration

If your business requires to migrate internal or embedded links in your files from DropBox to Microsoft 365, the SOW must explicitly specify it, along with the method or tool to handle this scenario.

CloudFuze’s LinkEx link Migration service ensures flawless transfer of links from the source to the destination cloud platform without the issues of broken links.

Dropbox Paper Migration

It is essential not to overlook Dropbox Paper migration during data migration and any loss or corruption of its data can have serious consequences for the organization’s workflow and productivity But, migrating Dropbox paper can be problematic as it is incompatible with other clouds. So, it is important to mention this requirement in the SOW and include how to address this issue.

Cloud data migration tools like CloudFuze provide IT teams with the capability to migrate Dropbox Paper to Microsoft 365 in .DOCX format for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online compatibility.

Action Items for On-Premises Migration

The SOW must clarify whether the internal IT teams and the migration vendor must execute an on-premises Dropbox to Office 365 migration. It is imperative when the organization requires to maintain data confidentiality by transferring them only through local dedicated servers instead of cloud servers.

For doing that, getting the servers ready is one action item, another is to deploy the tool securely in the on-prem migration environment.

Transferring Incremental Changes

While the data migration vendor performs a one-time migration for a large volume of data, some incremental changes might be added to the source records as users continue working in the source cloud platform.

Migrating the latest changes since the last migration through a delta or incremental migration is essential for 100% replication. Decide whether your company plans to migrate all or selective incremental changes and add the list item to the SOW accordingly.

Backup, Recovery, and Error-Handling

When preparing to migrate Dropbox files to Office 365, coordinate with your data migration vendor about the data backup, recovery, re-try mechanisms, and error handling strategies. Planning these procedures well ahead of the actual migration can help overcome unforeseen circumstances.

Once the above elements are planned, the SOW must reflect these details to be transparent and ensure alignment with the migration goals.

With the right planning of Dropbox to Office 365 migration, businesses can minimize downtime, reduce the risk of data loss, and achieve their migration goals.

With CloudFuze as the migration partner, businesses can plan the Dropbox to Microsoft 365 migration SOW specific to their needs and have it addressed with market-leading tool capabilities. To learn more, contact us.