benjamin niaulin...benjamin niaulin is an office 365 mvp, recognized as one of the top 25...
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Benjamin Niaulin is an Office 365 MVP, recognized as one of the Top 25 SharePoint influencers in 2014 and 2nd for Office 365 in 2015. Being a Microsoft Certified Trainer
since 2008 has allowed him to become proficient in simplifying complex technologies, making him an expert in SharePoint & Office 365 vulgarization. He spoke at over 200
conferences around the world.
BENJAMIN NIAULIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CONTENT
Intro
Reason #1 - You don’t know SharePoint
Reason #2 - You thought training users was optional
Reason #3 - Lack of communication of upcoming changes
Reason #4 - You thought Database-Attach upgrade was the answer to everything
Reason #5 - Ignored making a new Architecture
Reason #6 - You didn’t inventory your sites and test them for upgrade
Reason #7 - No planning, no governance, no information architecture
Reason #8 - No measurable goals were set
Reason #9 - Branding seemed irrelevant to you
Reason #10 - Ignoring 3rd party tools
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TOP TEN REASONSYOUR SHAREPOINT 2013 MIGRATION FAILED
With the arrival of SharePoint 2013 on the market and the push for Office 365, many are planning to make the move on to this new version
of SharePoint. I consider myself lucky to have already participated to a few of these so far. Often, I come across some challenges in the
organization surrounding this upgrade. This White Paper aims to show the common mistakes made during a SharePoint Migration and
help by providing solutions to these problems or simply raise awareness.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED
#1
YOU DON’T KNOW SHAREPOINT
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I would not say this if I hadn’t seen it time and time again. It is unfortunately
more common than you think. The person in charge is often an ITPro, Developer and sometimes neither, working in a completely different field than
SharePoint; Simply thrown in to manage it after a quick three day training. If you plan on doing a migration of your SharePoint, from any version to any
other for that matter, you will need a good understanding of how it works.
This is a platform that touches:
• SQL
• IIS
• DNS
• Active Directory
• Custom Code (JS, .Net, C#, etc…)
• Information Architecture
• Search
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• Extranet
And so much more a bulleted list could never cover
If you are planning on upgrading the platform that does so much in so many verticals, you need to know how SharePoint works and what it needs to work. If this is not you, then assemble a team that does. A successful migration depends on this.
#2YOU THOUGHT TRAINING USERS WAS OPTIONAL
I was lucky enough to work for 5 years in a training center as a MCT
(Microsoft Certified Trainer). This helped me see a greater value to training that I originally had. Unfortunately, there are many who think
training their users is optional.
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Through training, the organization can help Power Users and End Users alike understand the reason for the adoption of this new platform in the company. Without training, you are ensuring a struggle between the person using SharePoint and what they are trying to do. Training
does not need to be expensive, it can be On-Demand video training available and made internally or even a Wiki.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 6
Shocking isn’t it. But without proper training, users will not understand
the new application or how to use it. Training goes further than making sure End Users know how to use this application. It’s also to help them
adopt the new SharePoint platform.
#3LACK OF COMMUNICATION OF UPCOMING CHANGES
This one is a big one that can be easily fixed. If there is one thing
people hate, in general, it’s change. They are afraid of what they do not know.
By bringing the change to your organization, you are already the “bad guy”.
Thus, if you do not ease this change in where you work, your new
SharePoint implementation will have a very difficult start. Even if they have experience with SharePoint 2010, they just want to do their job
and go home.
Imagine arriving to work one day and seeing a completely different
interface or set of features you have no idea how to use. You will instantly feel angry. Now you’ll have to search for things you had
started developing a routine for and this, as always, is the worst time for it to happen. Instead of seeing the benefits and taking the change
positively, the upgrade to SharePoint 2013 will be seen as “Those IT guys changed it again for no good reason!”
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By providing a constant stream of information on the
upcoming migration you can help them accept and even adopt the new version.
This can be with:• Announcing the dates the migration will be done• Showing off some of the new features that will help them
do their job faster• Creating little events to launch the new 2013 sites
People are not stupid, if you can show them the new features,
tell them when they are coming and why they need them, they will invite the change.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 7
#4YOU THOUGHT DATABASE-ATTACH UPGRADE WAS THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING
After some research on SharePoint migration, you may have seen
what the supported migration scenarios are. If you haven’t, check out this article for more information.
There, I mention that Microsoft only supports database-attach as an
upgrade scenario. This means taking the old content database and bringing it over to the new environment. Another new feature of
SharePoint 2013 is to run a Site Collection in 2010 compatibility mode also covered in that same article above. The mistake would be to think
that this would solve all your problems, just like magic. There is no magic here, taking the Content Database and bringing it
over to 2013 will definitely work but is not a turnkey solution. Unless your old environment is perfect and has been well split into multiple
databases. Chances are, you have few content databases with a mash-up of Site-Collections in there.
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Take the time to migrate only the content you want. Because,
if you don’t take the time during this process to clean up the old, you won’t do it after either. You will then be stuck
managing the same chaos in the new version.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 8
By default all site collections in a Web Application are stored in the
same database.
Taking this and bringing it over to SharePoint 2013 is not necessarily the best thing. Though in some cases it will make perfect sense, in
many others it will be like brining the old chaos into a new interface. Custom code will probably not work anymore either.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED
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#5IGNORED MAKING A NEW ARCHITECTURE
So you finally got SharePoint 2013 and all of its new features. Social
revamped, new community sites, search leading the way with continuous crawl and so many others. It’s time to upgrade, and what do
you do? Take the old databases and plug them into the new environment.
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Making a new architecture means both the physical and logical architecture. Your servers will not be doing the same thing anymore. And the way you had set up your Site Collections before might not be necessary anymore.
Check out my introduction to SharePoint 2013 to see some of the new features that may have an impact on your architecture.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 10
Enough has changed in this version to completely rethink your
architecture, all the way up to your Web Applications even. For example, the new Content Search Web Part combined with Continuous
Crawl lifts some of the old barriers we had when building our Site Collections.
#6
YOU DIDN’T INVENTORY YOUR SITES AND TEST THEM FOR UPGRADE
This one can be relatively easy or complicated. There are many factors that could make your SharePoint site not work after you upgrade. Most of
them covered in “what might not work so well after you upgrade”, but there are ways to identify these problematic sites before. First, you should make sure you always have an inventory of all your SharePoint sites.
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You can easily export all of them using PowerShell into a CSV file that you can then import into either Excel or Visio, it really depends how you like to see your inventory. Luckily, there is a Health Check you can run before you migrate to see which Site Collections could potentially
have issues migrating. This is all available out of the box for us to use, so there is no good reason to skip this in your migration.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 11
#7
NO PLANNING, NO GOVERNANCE, NO INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE…
Governance has become a buzzword around SharePoint, but there is a reason for that. You do need to have a governance plan, it’s important.
However, it can be a lot simpler than others may make it out to be. I already gave some tools and techniques to create a simple Governance plan so we won’t cover the details again here. Planning your migration can also be as trivial as setting up some milestones and objectives to meet to
consider it successful.
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Simply using your SharePoint site inventory and marking sites to be removed, upgraded or rebuilt can make a huge difference. A Governance plan is critical for both the success of your migration and your actual SharePoint project. However, spending weeks on building a PDF
Governance Plan is not productive nor will it be used and referenced. The Governance Plan is a simple set of rules to ensure SharePoint is used in the way you want it to be. See how to build your own Inventory.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 12
#8NO MEASURABLE GOALS WERE SET
You jumped ahead and did the entire migration, now the entire
organization is running SharePoint 2013. So what? How is it better? Where did you increase productivity and how is it helping the
organization increase its bottom line?
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You need to set some measurable goals for this new SharePoint implementation. If you’re going to migrate, you need to know why and how you are achieving it. Analytics, in this case, is your best friend. See what’s new at a high level with SharePoint Analytics.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 13
I see this very often when the Geeks are in charge of this process. I
say this because I myself belong to that category for some time…always wanting the shiny new toy.
#9BRANDING SEEMED IRRELEVANT TO YOU
This is a touchy subject amongst a few. Some will argue functionality is
the only thing you need to move forward. While others will argue that branding and a good user experience is crucial for user adoption.
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My test is easy: I ask, “Would you show me your SharePoint site? Would you be ashamed or proud to show it?”. I am not saying your migration will fail if you do not brand SharePoint 2013 but you can bet users will be keep to pick up a brand new, good looking SharePoint
site. And keep using it every morning. Learn where and how to start branding SharePoint.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 14
In almost all cases, migration or not, nobody wants to work on an ugly,
hardly usable SharePoint Intranet. If you leave SharePoint as it is and just stick your logo on it, it still does not give the user a sense of
ownership or belonging.
#10
IGNORING 3RD PARTY TOOLS
Yes, these tools do cost money. But, considering the amount of time you can spend trying to migrate at a granular level, you will end up saving a lot
by simply using a third party tool.
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If you want to bring over just specific sites or libraries from within a select number of Site Collections, then it might be easier to use an existing solution for it. Tools like Sharegate can be a cost effective solution to hours of migration.
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 15
OTHER REASONS UPGRADES HAVE FAILEDThere are many factors that drives a SharePoint migration to its failure. I am curious to
hear your experiences with these kinds of upgrades.
Engage with me on Twitter@bniaulin
READ MORE
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED 16
URLBuild an inventory before a SharePoint Migration and put it in Visio
Should I migrate to SharePoint on Office 365?
Legal and Compliance worries when migrating SharePoint to Office 365
Migrate to Office 365 - Supported Migration Scenarios
Configure SharePoint Online to use Active Directory Users
File Share and SharePoint migration to SharePoint Online
Migrate from SharePoint 2007 to Office 365 with Sharegate
What’s new in SharePoint 2013 that’s worth making the switch?
Supported scenarios for my migration to SharePoint 2013
Don’t just wrap your previous SharePoint with the 2013 look, upgrade
Make a roadmap for your SharePoint migration, start planning
Governance and Information Architecture, Tools and Techniques
What might not work so well anymore after the migration
WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED
READ MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
Migrate to SharePoint 2013 - Supported Scenarios
Migrate to SharePoint 2013 - Worth the switch?
What might not work so well after a SharePoint migration
SharePoint Governance and Information Architecture
Make a roadmap for your SharePoint migration
New Analytics in SharePoint 2013
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