Migrating SharePoint Online Sites Between Tenants with Cloudiway
In today’s digital landscape, organizations are constantly restructuring, merging, or growing, making SharePoint Online tenant-to-tenant migrations a common scenario—especially during mergers, acquisitions, or organizational changes. Cloudiway offers a robust, cloud-native platform to simplify SharePoint site migrations between Microsoft 365 tenants. This article outlines the end-to-end migration process and best practices to help customers understand how Cloudiway handles these complex migrations.
Why Migrate SharePoint Sites?
SharePoint tenant-to-tenant migrations are essential when consolidating Microsoft 365 environments without losing vital business data. This enables organizations to modernize infrastructure, facilitate collaboration, and maintain regulatory compliance.
What Does Cloudiway Migrate?
With Cloudiway, you can seamlessly transfer:
Site collections and subsites
File hierarchies and folders
Permissions
Navigation and structure
Welcome pages, URLs, and metadata
SharePoint libraries (pages, files, lists)
Discussion boards, announcements, webparts, TermStore taxonomy, and more
Classic and modern team sites
Key Migration Features
Delta Passes: Only changes (new or modified content) get migrated in later passes, reducing disruption.
Audit and Reporting: Built-in tools help audit source environments, monitor migration progress, and generate post-migration reports.
Performance Optimization: Platform leverages Azure, overcoming throttling limitations and maximizing transfer speeds.
Preservation of Data: File structures, permissions, version histories, and metadata remain intact in the target tenant.
The Cloudiway SharePoint Migration Process
1. Project Preparation
Consulting & Licensing: These migrations require Cloudiway licenses and consulting services—projects typically take at least two weeks to initiate.
Assessment: Cloudiway consultants help perform audits to understand your sites, estimate volumes, and identify potential issues.
Planning: Define what content, user accounts, and site structures will be migrated.
2. Prerequisites
Source & Target Tenant Setup
Service Accounts: Create migration-dedicated Office 365 accounts in both tenants—should be SharePoint admins, without MFA or SSO.
Azure Applications: Grant necessary Graph API permissions using Azure Active Directory Applications in both source and target.
Mapping Table: Map source emails and permissions to target accounts to preserve access control and metadata. This must be exhaustive!
3. Setting Up Cloudiway Connectors
Connectors: Establish connectors for both the source and target tenants in the Cloudiway platform. Multiple connectors can be used in parallel for large projects.
Site List Creation: Choose how to populate the site migration list—automatically retrieve (“Get Sites”), import via CSV, or create entries manually.
4. Audit & Pre-Migration
Audit: Optional but recommended. Provides details about files, libraries, site members, and last modification dates.
Pre-Processing: Cloudiway automatically creates site collections and subsites in the target, migrates permissions, and sets up SharePoint libraries.
Enable Custom Scripts: Allow custom scripts in target sites using PowerShell commands to facilitate the migration.
5. Migration Execution
Initiate Migration: Start the migration from the Cloudiway platform. Each site migrates as soon as a free platform slot is available.
Delta Migration: After the first pass, run additional “delta” migrations to transfer any new/changed content until the final cutover.
6. Monitoring and Reporting
Dashboard: Use the Cloudiway dashboard to track migration status and troubleshoot as needed.
Logs & Reports: Get detailed logs and migration reports for full traceability and compliance.
7. Validation
Post-Migration Checks: Verify that all data, permissions, and site features have transferred correctly. Delta passes ensure that late changes are captured.
Troubleshooting and Support
Cloudiway provides extensive support documentation, common error guides, and consulting services. Customers can leverage these resources for a fast, cost-effective, and stress-free migration experience.
Cloudiway: The Trusted Path for SharePoint Online Site Migrations
By following Cloudiway’s proven process, organizations can ensure seamless migration of SharePoint sites between tenants, maintain data integrity, and minimize downtime during critical business transitions.
SharePoint Migration | Migrate Your Sites Between Tenant
SharePoint Online Migration Guide | Cloudiway