You have been tasked with migrating your company or organization from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365.
Great! Now, what are the benefits to using Microsoft 365 over Google Workspace (formerly Office 365 and G
Suite), and how should you best migrate your company productivity tools?
What are the benefits of Migrating to M365?
The Microsoft 365 platform provides a wide range of plans, integration with desktop email client applications,
and much more than other online storage platforms. Office 365 is more suitable for enterprises owing to
flexible plans and subscriptions, and advanced security protection.
A few benefits of Microsoft 365 are:
- Flexible productivity
- Ease of Use and Integrated Ecosystem
- Security
- Cost-Effective Solutions
Flexible Productivity
Whether you are in the office or working remotely, you can work, share, and connect with your team as your
business steps into this new era of work. Teams is a great tool to connect with your team and to chat and
conduct meetings. Microsoft apps can be accessed anywhere and offline on Microsoft powerful desktops apps.
Your team can review and comment on projects while sharing ideas seamlessly.
Ease of Use and Integrated Ecosystem
Microsoft’s productivity apps, such as Office, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook, among others, have been around for many years. Most people using a computer likely started using Microsoft Office products before ever shifting to Google. That familiarity will entice people to want to go back to Microsoft because you are already familiar with the software and ecosystem. Microsoft’s productivity apps are also much easier to learn and use than the online-based Google Docs. The apps are are integrated with each other as well, providing much better communication and collaboration ecosystem, and automated app syncing across mobile and desktop products.
Security
Microsoft invests heavily every year on security and compliance, staying ahead of the pack by keeping ahead of the ever-changing compliance standards of the industry. Microsoft 365 comes with advanced security and
threat protection, that includes many certifications such as:
- FISMA
- SSAE16
- HIPAA
- SOC1 Type II
- SOC2 Type II
- ISO 27001, 27018
- GDPR
- EU Data Protection Directive
Cost-Effective Solutions
Pricing is another area where Microsoft 365 shines, but it isn’t through simple pricing models – it’s because of
the many options and flexibility of their pricing. Because every business is different, there will be a great option
that suits every companies needs. Starting at $7.70 a user per month, a business can get started with their basic productivity tool needs at a fairly low cost and with a generous 1TB of storage.
For a complete overview of the pricing model, please see the table below:
Steps to Migration
Before you start
Before you start the process of Google Workspace migration the following procedures must be performed:
- Create a subdomain for mail routing to Microsoft 365 or Office 365
- Create a subdomain for mail routing to your Google Workspace domain
- Provision users in Microsoft 365 or Office 365
Migrating your data
You can migrate from Google Workspace using either of the following methods:
- Automated – through the New Exchange admin center
- Manual – through the New Exchange admin center as well as Classic Exchange admin center
Performing a manual migration can take a lot of time and effort with a high number of steps. A single error can
fail the process at anytime. Plus, you can only migrate emails when using the manual method, so the easiest
and more time efficient solution would be to choose the following automated option:
- Automated – through the New Exchange admin center
If you are still set on performing the migration manually, you can find all the steps here.
With the new Exchange admin center (EAC), the migration of mails, contacts, and calendar from Google
Workspace to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 has been automated. The process has been now simplified to the
extent that several of the manual steps that a user had to perform manually are no longer required.
The following outlines the 9 steps to properly migrate your organization’s productivity tools from Google
Workspace to Microsoft 365:
Step Description
Step 1: In the new Exchange Admin center at https://admin.exchange.microsoft.com/#/, go to Migration and then click Add migration batch.
Step 2: The migration batch wizard opens. On the first page, configure the following settings:
- Give migration batch a unique name: Enter a unique name
- Select the mailbox migration path: Verify that Migration to Exchange Online is selected
When you’re finished, click Next.
Step 3: On the Select the migration type page, select Google Workspace (Gmail) migration, and then click Next
Step 4: On the Prerequisites for Google Workspace migration page, verify that the Automate the configuration of your Google Workspace for migration section is expanded, and then click Start in that section to automate the four required prerequisite steps.
Step 5: In the Google sign in page that appears, sign in to your Google account to validate your APIs. Once the APIs are successfully validated, the following things happen:
- A JSON file (projectid-*.json) is downloaded to your local system
- The link to add the ClientID and the Scope is provided. The ClientID and Scope are also listed for your
reference - Click the API access link. You will be redirected to Google Admin API Controls page.
- Click Add new. Copy the ClientID and Scope from the EAC, paste it here, and then click Authorize
Step 6: On the Set a migration endpoint page of the wizard, select one of the following options:
- Select the migration endpoint: Select the existing migration endpoint from the drop down list.
- Create a new migration endpoint: Select this option if you’re a first-time user. If you selected Create a new migration endpoint, do the following steps:
1. On the General Information page, configure the following settings:
- Migration Endpoint Name: Enter a value.
- Maximum concurrent migrations: Leave the default value 20 or change the value as required.
- Maximum concurrent incremental syncs: Leave the default value 10 or change the value as
required.
When you’re finished, click Next.
2. On the Gmail migration configuration page, configure the following settings:
- Email address: Enter the email address that you use to sign in to the Google Workspace.
- JSON key: Click Import JSON. In the dialog that appears, find and select the downloaded JSON
file, and then click Open.
Once the endpoint is successfully created, it will be listed under Select migration endpoint drop-down.
Select the endpoint from the drop-down list, and click Next.
Step 7: On the Add user mailboxes page, click Import CSV file and navigate to the folder where you have saved the CSV Step Description file.
If you haven’t already, create a CSV file containing the set of all of the users you want to migrate. You will need
its filename below. The allowed headers are:
- EmailAddress (required): Contains the primary email address for an existing Microsoft 365 or Office 365
mailbox. - Username (optional). Contains the Gmail primary email address, if it differs from Email Address.
When you’re finished, click Next.
Step 8: On the Move configuration page, enter the details and then click Next.
Step 9: On the Schedule batch migration page, verify all the details, click Save, and then click Done. Once the batch status changes from Syncing to Synced, you need to complete the batch.
Completion of Migration Batch and Finalization
In new EAC, when the migration batch has reached the state of Synced, it needs to be completed. To complete
the batch you must select the migration group. In the Details pane, select preferred option to complete the
batch, and click Save. The batch status will then be Completed.
After you have successfully migrated all of your Google Workspace users to Microsoft 365 or Office 365, you can switch your primary MX record to point to Microsoft 365 or Office 365. The update to the MX record will
propagate slowly, taking up to the length of time in the record’s previous TTL (time to live). At this point, you
are free to decommission your source Google Workspace tenant.
Conclusion
After following this guide your migration of your mail, calendar, and contacts from Google Workspace to
Microsoft 365 or Office 365 is now complete!
Completing a migration project from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 can be daunting. If you need help to ensure the migration will go smoothly without interruption, feel free to reach out to Softlanding.
Written By:
softlanding
Softlanding is a long-established IT services provider of transformation, professional services and managed IT services that helps organizations boost innovation and drive business value. We are a multi-award-winning Microsoft Gold Partner with 13 Gold Competencies and we use our experience and expertise to be a trusted advisor to our clients. Headquartered in Vancouver, BC, we have staff and offices in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary to serve clients across Canada.
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