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Xanthe Clay
Xanthe Clay

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SharePoint Online Migration: Why should I migrate to SharePoint Online?

Microsoft SharePoint has revolutionized how organizations function, collaborate, and store documents. If you are still on SharePoint on-premises, it’s time to realize the potential SharePoint Online has and make a switch to get access to advanced features and updates. Being on the cloud should be a top priority of businesses today to survive the competition while saving on many resources.

If you’re among those few businesses that are still struggling to decide whether to migrate to SharePoint Online or not, this article is the perfect solution. It will help you understand what SharePoint Online is, what are the perks of migrating to SharePoint Online and how you can do it.

What is the prominence of SharePoint Online migration?

SharePoint Online is a cloud-based service by Microsoft that is suitable for all business types and sizes. With the cloud version, you do not need to install the servers or other infrastructure. Just buy the subscription as a part of the Microsoft 365 plan or as a discrete service. Within SharePoint Online, your employees can create a network of intranet communication using sites to share information, documents, and project progress with team members, customers, and stockholders.
Since we‘re now familiar with SharePoint Online, let’s proceed and learn about the significance of SharePoint Online migration.

Centralized storage and document management

Members of your organization can create, edit, and share documents through SharePoint Online sites. It provides central storage to users for keeping documents on the cloud. When working with SharePoint, there is no need to attach documents to emails every time, as you can execute complete communication through the sites.

Regular and automatic updates

An individual managing an organization’s administration can’t keep track of updating all the platforms they use. SharePoint Online saves you from installing updates, as Office 365 manages all the major and minor updates. You can continue to work without worrying about business downtime or interruptions in the service during the platform update.

Enhanced security and easy scalability

Office 365 is a highly secured platform with security policies like multi-factor authentication and data encryption, helping users keep their data safe from cyber breaches. Along with this, scaling a SharePoint Online environment is really easy and pocket-friendly, as you just need to upgrade the subscription plan. There is no need to buy additional physical storage and servers.

Better user management

SharePoint Online allows you to easily manage user access. It gives you better control over the user's ability to share your organizational content with external users. Users can share files, folders, and sites with users within and outside the organization through a link with permissions restricted to Read or Edit.

Easy Accessibility

With SharePoint Online, you have all your data at your fingertips. A smooth internet connection and a Microsoft account with a SharePoint subscription are all you need to access the content anywhere and on any device.

Less maintenance costs

Working with SharePoint Online lowers your burden, as Microsoft will be responsible for all the maintenance tasks. It will help you save the resources, time, and money usually spent on tasks like updating the environment.

What are the challenges with migration SharePoint Online?

After learning what SharePoint Online is and the reasons to migrate to it, it’s essential to be aware of the challenges that you might face during SharePoint Online migration. After you’ve migrated the content to SharePoint Online with the help of manual approaches or the native methods (SharePoint Migration Tool or SPMT) available, there is a surety that your data will be organized as earlier in the source.

There is no organization of data post-migration, and the users might also face complications adapting to the new platform. These methods do not support the transfer of metadata, versions, and permissions from on-premises SharePoint to SharePoint Online. Data integrity and structure within the sites at the source may be modified after the completion of the process at the destination. Since there is no automation, migrating data manually can be exhausting and time-consuming. You cannot guarantee that all the data from the on-premises environment will be moved to the cloud.

Conclusion

Microsoft keeps on introducing regular updates to its products, and SharePoint Online is no exception. If you’re planning SharePoint Online migration, it’s better to go with a professional SharePoint to SharePoint migration tool and ditch the traditional native approaches. Kernel Migration for SharePoint is one of the most reliable tools that you can consider for efficient file transfer. This SharePoint Online migration tool supports the transfer of all the content from on-premises SharePoint (sites, subsites, permissions, metadata, etc.) and other sources to SharePoint Online within very little time.

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