In support of the University of Miami's strategic initiative to move mission critical services into the cloud and cloud-based services, UMIT has embarked on a University-wide migration from Microsoft's SharePoint 2007 (on-premises) to Microsoft’s cloud-based solution Office 365 SharePoint Online (SPO). This project began in August 2015 with a planned completion of December 2016. More information about the SPO service can be found the
Office 365 SharePoint (Sites) services page. For information regarding the migration and the migration process please continue reading below.
What is SharePoint Online (SPO)?
SharePoint Online is Microsoft's Office 365 team based collaboration tool which allows you to collect and share information in a centralized team environment. Once your site is created, you can immediately start adding users and building your out your site. SharePoint is integrated with Microsoft Office enabling you to use your site with productivity software you are already familiar with. SharePoint includes built-in applications to help you streamline your business processes and keep your team informed, focused and on task. The SharePoint platform also offers a flexible user interface, secure API and easy to use data model that enables you to configure custom looking interfaces that fit your exact requirement with minimal development and UMIT support. With SharePoint Online your site is automatically scaled to handle the most demanding of business needs while running securely inside Microsoft's powerful O365 Cloud infrastructure. UMIT is very excited to offer you SharePoint Online 2013. For more information please take 15 minutes to watch the SPO Quick Start video.
Why migrate to SPO?
In addition to the University of Miami's strategic initiative of moving mission critical service to the cloud and cloud-based services, UMIT supported SharePoint 2007 environments are currently hosted on aging and increasingly unsupportable hardware. Migrating your site from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint Online will ensure the continuity of your site's business functions and an improved quality of service.
Who will migrate to SPO?
Any person(s) or Department owning a site hosted on a UMIT supported SharePoint 2007 environment.
When will I migrate to SPO?
Over the next several months (beginning in August of 2015) you will be contacted by the SharePoint Services migration team to coordinate and schedule your site's migration to SPO.
What are my responsibilities during the migration process?
As a primary site owner(s) of a SharePoint 2007 site you would be responsible for:
- Site content
- Site design
- Setting and managing access permissions
- Testing and validating the migrated site
- Coordinating and communicating with your costumers during the migration
- Ongoing support to your customers
What migration options are available to me?
The SPS migration team offers two migration options:
- A simple overnight migration with no parallel testing
Most of simple/low usage sites will prefer this option; this option will require users be locked out from 2007 while the migration is running.
- A week long incremental migration with parallel testing
The critical, complex, custom and large sites will prefer this option; the option will require the primary site owner(s) to coordinate,communicate and manage the parallel testing of the migrated site with their customers.
How do I know if my site is custom or complex?
If your site leverages any of the following, it can be considered custom/complex:
- 3rd party templates like the Fab 40, including Absence and Issue tracker
- 3rd party solutions and web parts like RADEditor and Colour Calendar
- Custom developed solutions
- Custom site templates and themes
- List views with more than 5000 items
- Customized site pages
- Customized list forms
- Custom columns
- InfoPath forms
- Custom workflows
- SSRS reports
- Customized data view web parts
- SQL and CAML data connections
- Excel web access oData and list connections
- Custom in-line code blocks like .NET and JavaScript
- Business data connections
What can I expect after the migration process is complete?
Following most migrations, some pages and navigation may need to be fixed; if you go live with broken custom forms, workflows or other processes those objects may remain broken until they can be redeveloped with the assistance of the SPS support team. This process must be managed post migration and may take several weeks.
Who do I contact if I have questions or need help during the migration process?
Please contact SharePoint Support at: sps@miami.
Need more information?
