10 Things to Consider when Moving Email to the Cloud

The process of migrating existing server-hosted email to a cloud environment, like Microsoft 365, may seem like a large undertaking. Yet with an effective and strong plan in place and following these considerations, your upgrade can be made much easier.

1. Project ownership. Those involved within the migration must have agreed responsibilities and timelines for tasks to be completed. Ensuring effective communication is held between both technical staff and those across the organisation is essential to reduce friction between teams.
2. Filtering down what data you need to bring across. It is often unnecessary to migrate years worth of emails, which may be better archived. However, you should be mindful of the GDPR about storing and processing personal data, alongside any industry regulations for how long data is to be kept before you make this decision.
3. Cyber security via email filtering and anti-virus. Microsoft 365 features many of the basic protective measures, but with enterprise subscriptions, you have access to higher levels of control and further security options – ideal for those who need to ensure strict compliance when sharing sensitive data.
4. Compliance. To simplify this process, Microsoft 365 has inbuilt functionality to allow you more control when accessing archived emails. Which is all hosted on Azure, providing you with the assurance that the security features meet industry-specific, regional and international requirements.
5. Efficient collaboration between teams. Within the cloud, Microsoft 365 Apps such as Excel, Teams and SharePoint offer leading platforms for effective and real-time cross-collaboration.
6. Cached contacts. When migrating to the cloud, you should be mindful that cached contacts will not transfer to the new system. If you want to keep all contacts, ensure that your contact lists are up-to-date and saved.
7. Signatures. Like cached contacts, email signatures from previous exchange servers won’t migrate to Microsoft 365. Many effective and reliable tools can be used to implement company-wide signatures. Alternatively, staff can save their existing signature so that they can mirror it on the new platform.
8. Teams migration. If you had previously set up Teams before migrating to Microsoft 365’s cloud solution, you should report this to your IT support provider as this may result in duplicate account profiles.
9. Backing up. Microsoft 365 has a built-in retention period, however, should you need to hold emails for a long period then installing a cloud backup solution is necessary to keep your critical data.
10. Email archiving. Previous emails that have been archived to PST need to be reimported into the live mailbox.