Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration – Best Practices Guide

What is Tenant in Office 365 Suite?

As a landlord can have multiple tenants in his building, similarly Office 365 Suite can also have multiple accounts under one parent account. So, the multiple accounts of different domains are known as tenants and they come under one parent account. The need for the tenant to tenant migration can arise anytime and there are many reasons for this problem. So, let’s check out some of the reasons for migrating Tenant to Tenant in Office 365.

Reasons for Tenant to Tenant Migration in Office 365

There are a number of reasons regarding Office 365 migration from one tenant to another tenant. You just require to check them all.

Revamping- A company may decide to switch domain name or names occasionally. Consequently, they need their mailboxes’ worth of information transferred to a new tenant who uses a different name and/or domain.

Governance- If a company decides to move all of its data to a new tenant, it will need to adapt to the new policies. To adhere to the regulations of the new tenant, a company might need Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration.

Consolidating Tenants- A Company might have multiple Office 365 Tenants and want to merge them into one tenant to cut costs and ease management. So, you will need to migrate all tenants to one place.

Expansion- Want to move from O365 to other tenants for the universal desire to increase development and flexibility in one’s company.

The above reasons have justified why people are migrating from one Office 365 Tenant to another. Let’s explore some of the simple procedures to do the Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration.

Practices for Microsoft 365 (Office 365) Tenant to Tenant Migration

There are two ways that will help you to move all emails from one Tenant to Another. You can use the Office 365 Backup Tool to do the task in a few steps. Otherwise, if you go for the manual solution then there are a lot of steps that have to be implemented and pre-requisite you have to follow. You can explore both methods and choose one that fits the best.

1. Use an Automated Office 365 Backup Software
2. Manual Practices for Tenant to Tenant Migration in Office 365
   1. Pre-Requisites
   2. Tenant Migration

Use an Automated Office 365 Backup Software

As I have told you the manual process of migrating emails from tenant to tenant is quite lengthy, therefore, you can check out the migration through Office 365 Backup Tool First. This method with probably resolve your problem. But if you are a technical freak, then you can go with the manual method.

Steps to Migrate Tenant of O365 to Another

• Download Sysinfo Office 365 Backup Software and Launch it.
• Then mark the Modern Authentication option and Enter your Parent Office 365 Email Address.
• Authenticate the Login Process and select the Assign Impersonation option for fetching Tenant email addresses.
  
• After Signing In, click on the Import CSV option and make sure that the CSV file has the Tenant Email Addresses in it.
• The software will show the Connected status beside the Tenants that are linked to Parent Account.
• Now you can Mark the option between Mailbox, Online Archive, and Public Folder that you want to migrate to another Tenant. Click on Next to continue further.
• You can see all the folders present in the Tenants you have chosen. Mark the required items and then click on Next.
  
• Then in the Save As option, choose Office 365 and authenticate the Login Process of the Tenant to which you want to move the other tenants.
• Once the authentication completes, you can apply the necessary features of the software if needed, and click on the Next button.
• In the end, you can see the Tenant Email Address of the Source Tenant and the Tenant Email Address of the Destination Tenant. Verify them and click on the Convert button.
• All the emails and other items will start migrating from one tenant to another in Office 365.

This is the shortest and simplest way to perform the Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration without losing any data. You don’t have to make any preparation before the migration as it has to be done in manual method. Just download the software ad Enter Parent ID>Fetch Office 365 Tenants>Choose the Destination Tenant>Migrate O365 Tenants.

Manual Practices for Tenant to Tenant Migration in Office 365

This method for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration involves certain phases. You will have to go through all the phases to complete the whole task manually.

Phase Prior to Migration

Step 1- The first step is to prepare the domain.

Create the domain by following the instructions that are provided:

• Check to see that you have a sufficient number of subscriptions for the Office 365 account.
• To ensure a smooth start to the migration process, it is necessary to create administrative profiles in both the source and the destination systems.
• Set your sights on the inboxes of individual users, rooms and resources, and distribution groups.
• In the event that it is necessary to do so, work on consolidating AD DS with the assistance of AD DS tools and synchronize the source domain with the objective domain in a portable manner.
• After the conversion is complete, you should provide your end customers with additional training on how to use Office 365.

Step 2: Perform an Online Domain Verification

• First things first, let’s get started on verifying the objective Tenant Address in Office 365.
• Following this step, add a source domain to the objective Office 365 admin center, and then create TXT entries in the DNS.

Take precautions to ensure that only one tenant uses the address. If this is not corrected, the authentication procedure will terminate unexpectedly.

After authentication is complete, it will take approximately three days before any adjustments can be anticipated.

Step 3: Establish a Schedule for your Migration Procedure.

• Begin by generating a CSV file for mapping purposes and compiling individual inboxes that you intend to transfer from the beginning.
• Now, take notice of the TTL rating which is considered to be the lowest on the MX record. (of the primary email domain).
• Intentionally disable directory synchronization for the originating Tenant. (from Office 365 admin centre).

Stage 4 of the Office 365 Tenant Migration Procedure

1. Put a stop to the flow of Emails in Office 365

You can stop the flow of incoming mail to the source Tenant by either substituting the principal MS record with an unpredictable number or getting help from a third-party application. Since you have already determined the lowest acceptable value of TTL on the MX record (of the native email address) during the process of preparation, you are able to establish the target timeframe for this phase in accordance with that value.

2. Change Office 365 Subscription to Another Tenant 

Before beginning the process of migrating your Office 365 account to another tenant, you must first remove all instances of the primary mail domain from things belonging to the primary tenant.

• Change the primary email address back to the one that comes with Office 365 (the native email address).
• Then, using the Lync Admin Portal, remove all of the Lync subscriptions that are associated with the Primary Tenant.
• Now, you need to re-establish the primary email address of the distribution, rooms, and groups to the native domain.
• Following that, remove the auxiliary mail id from each and every Tenant entity.
• In Windows PowerShell, run the command Get-MsolUser -DomainName xyz.com. This will retrieve all of the objects using the principal email address, or it will decline to remove them.
• After that, we will investigate the steps that need to be taken in order to successfully carry out an Office 365 tenant to tenant migration.

Get Ready for the Target Domain

Check the source Tenant in the objective domain is a part of it. (There must be a gap of 1 hour between this step and the previous step).

• In the Start menu, change the auto-discover CNAME setting.
• After making use of AD FS, you will now be required to create an entirely new domain within the target tenancy for AD FS.
• Accredit licenses and activate the brand-new user profiles that have been created in the target domain.
• On the newly created accounts, the principal email address should be configured to come from the originating domain. (do it using Windows PowerShell). Also, reach a consensus on how the credentials will be communicated to the end users.
• Now that the individual addresses are operational, you should change the mail forwarding and direct the MX record to the brand-new mail id for Office 365.
• Check to see how much mail enters and leaves the objective Tenant.

After that, in order to conduct Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration, follow the instructions that are described below.

The Pre-Migration Phase completes here and now you will just have to migrate Office 365 Tenants from one to another.

Steps for Migrating from One Tenant to Another in O365

When there are fewer than 500 people, you should transfer the mail calendar and contacts to the intended Tenant mailbox separately. When it comes to the transferring of emails, the migration procedure should be date-restricted. If in case you have more than 500 people, you should use the multi-pass technique to transmit the mailbox data in numerous batches. This is because it is more efficient. You also have the option to transfer only contacts, just one week’s worth of info, calendars, and so on.

This is how you can perform the Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Step by Step using a manual method.

Conclusion

Now, it’s up to you to figure out how best to make the migration. You can opt for the time-consuming manual process, or you can use the time-saving Office 365 Backup Tool. The physical method is recommended if you have a deep understanding of Office 365 and the Tenants it provides. If you want the most convenient option for Tenant to Tenant Migration in Office 365, then you should use the automatic software.

Frequently Asked Questions