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ABOUT THE AUTHORBENJAMIN NIAULINBenjamin Niaulin is an Office 365 MVP, recognized as one of the Top 25 SharePointinfluencers in 2014 and 2nd for Office 365 in 2015. Being a Microsoft CertifiedTrainer since 2008 has allowed him to become proficient in simplifying complextechnologies, making him an expert in SharePoint & Office 365 vulgarization. Hespoke at over 200 conferences around the world.

CONTENTIntro 4Reason #1 - You don’t know SharePoint 5Reason #2 - You thought training users was optional 6Reason #3 - Lack of communication of upcoming changes 7Reason #4 - You thought Database-Attach upgrade was the answer to everything 8Reason #5 - Ignored making a new Architecture 10Reason #6 - You didn’t inventory your sites and test them for upgrade 11Reason #7 - No planning, no governance, no information architecture 12Reason #8 - No measurable goals were set 13Reason #9 - Branding seemed irrelevant to you 14Reason #10 - Ignoring 3rd party tools 15

TOP TEN REASONSYOUR SHAREPOINT 2013 MIGRATION FAILEDWith the arrival of SharePoint 2013 on the market and the push for Office 365, many are planning to make the move on to this newversion of SharePoint. I consider myself lucky to have already participated to a few of these so far. Often, I come across somechallenges in the organization surrounding this upgrade. This White Paper aims to show the common mistakes made during aSharePoint Migration and help by providing solutions to these problems or simply raise awareness.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED5#1YOU DON’T KNOW SHAREPOINTI would not say this if I hadn’t seen it time and time again. It isThis is a platform that touches:unfortunately more common than you think. The person in charge is SQL Custom Code (JS, .Net, C#, etc ) IIS Information Architectureafter a quick three day training. If you plan on doing a migration of your DNS SearchSharePoint, from any version to any other for that matter, you will need a Active Directory Extranetoften an ITPro, Developer and sometimes neither, working in acompletely different field than SharePoint; Simply thrown in to manage itgood understanding of how it works.And so much more a bulleted list could never covervIf you are planning on upgrading the platform that does so much in so many verticals, you need to know how SharePoint works andwhat it needs to work. If this is not you, then assemble a team that does. A successful migration depends on this.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED6#2YOU THOUGHT TRAINING USERS WAS OPTIONALI was lucky enough to work for 5 years in a training center as aShocking isn’t it. But without proper training, users will notMCT (Microsoft Certified Trainer). This helped me see a greaterunderstand the new application or how to use it. Training goesvalue to training that I originally had. Unfortunately, there arefurther than making sure End Users know how to use thismany who think training their users is optional.application. It’s also to help them adopt the new SharePointplatform.vThrough training, the organization can help Power Users and End Users alike understand the reason for the adoption of this newplatform in the company. Without training, you are ensuring a struggle between the person using SharePoint and what they aretrying to do. Training does not need to be expensive, it can be On-Demand video training available and made internally or even aWiki.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED7#3LACK OF COMMUNICATION OF UPCOMING CHANGESThis one is a big one that can be easily fixed. If there is one thingvpeople hate, in general, it’s change. They are afraid of what they donot know.By bringing the change to your organization,you are already the “bad guy”.By providing a constant stream of information on theThus, if you do not ease this change in where you work, your newadopt the new version.SharePoint implementation will have a very difficult start. Even ifThis can be with:upcoming migration you can help them accept and eventhey have experience with SharePoint 2010, they just want to do Announcing the dates the migration will be donetheir job and go home. Showing off some of the new features that will helpthem do their job fasterImagine arriving to work one day and seeing a completely differentinterface or set of features you have no idea how to use. You will Creating little events to launch the new 2013 sitesinstantly feel angry. Now you’ll have to search for things you hadPeople are not stupid, if you can show them the newstarted developing a routine for and this, as always, is the worstfeatures, tell them when they are coming and why theytime for it to happen. Instead of seeing the benefits and taking theneed them, they will invite the change.change positively, the upgrade to SharePoint 2013 will be seen as“Those IT guys changed it again for no good reason!”

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED8#4YOU THOUGHT DATABASE-ATTACH UPGRADE WAS THEANSWER TO EVERYTHINGAfter some research on SharePoint migration, you may have seenBy default all site collections in a Web Application are stored in thewhat the supported migration scenarios are. If you haven’t, checksame database.out this article for more information.Taking this and bringing it over to SharePoint 2013 is notThere, I mention that Microsoft only supports database-attach asnecessarily the best thing. Though in some cases it will makean upgrade scenario. This means taking the old content databaseperfect sense, in many others it will be like brining the old chaosand bringing it over to the new environment. Another new featureinto a new interface. Custom code will probably not work anymoreof SharePoint 2013 is to run a Site Collection in 2010 compatibilityeither.mode also covered in that same article above. The mistake wouldbe to think that this would solve all your problems, just like magic.vThere is no magic here, taking the Content Database and bringingit over to 2013 will definitely work but is not a turnkey solution.Unless your old environment is perfect and has been well split intoTake the time to migrate only the content you want.multiple databases. Chances are, you have few content databasesBecause, if you don’t take the time during this process towith a mash-up of Site-Collections in there.clean up the old, you won’t do it after either. You will thenbe stuck managing the same chaos in the new version.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILEDYOU THOUGHT MIGRATING YOUR DOCUMENTSAND FILES TO SHAREPOINT WOULD BE HARDThere’s fortunately a simpler way: With a simple drag & drop motion,Sharegate migrates anything between your File Shares, SharePoint, Office 365,and OneDrive for Business.Migrate anythingMigrationSecurityAuditing & Reporting]vvStart My Free Trial NowIt’s free for 15 daysContent Management

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED10#5IGNORED MAKING A NEW ARCHITECTURESo you finally got SharePoint 2013 and all of its new features. SocialEnough has changed in this version to completely rethink yourrevamped, new community sites, search leading the way witharchitecture, all the way up to your Web Applications even. Forcontinuous crawl and so many others. It’s time to upgrade, andexample, the new Content Search Web Part combined withwhat do you do? Take the old databases and plug them into theContinuous Crawl lifts some of the old barriers we had whennew environment.building our Site Collections.vMaking 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 FAILED11#6YOU DIDN’T INVENTORY YOUR SITES AND TESTTHEM FOR UPGRADEThis 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.vYou can easily export all of them using PowerShell into a CSV file that you can then import into either Excel or Visio, it really dependshow you like to see your inventory. Luckily, there is a Health Check you can run before you migrate to see which Site Collections couldpotentially 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 yourmigration.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED12#7NO PLANNING, NO GOVERNANCE, NOINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE Governance has become a buzzword around SharePoint, but there is a reason for that. You do need to have a governance plan, it’simportant. 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 simpleGovernance plan so we won’t cover the details again here. Planning your migration can also be as trivial as setting up some milestones andobjectives to meet to consider it successful.vSimply using your SharePoint site inventory and marking sites to be removed, upgraded or rebuilt can make a huge difference. AGovernance plan is critical for both the success of your migration and your actual SharePoint project. However, spending weeks onbuilding a PDF Governance Plan is not productive nor will it be used and referenced. The Governance Plan is a simple set of rules toensure SharePoint is used in the way you want it to be. See how to build your own Inventory.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED13#8NO MEASURABLE GOALS WERE SETYou jumped ahead and did the entire migration, now the entireI see this very often when the Geeks are in charge of this process. Iorganization is running SharePoint 2013. So what? How is it better?say this because I myself belong to that category for some time Where did you increase productivity and how is it helping thealways wanting the shiny new toy.organization increase its bottom line?vYou need to set some measurable goals for this new SharePoint implementation. If you’re going to migrate, you need to know whyand 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 FAILED14#9BRANDING SEEMED IRRELEVANT TO YOUThis is a touchy subject amongst a few. Some will argueIn almost all cases, migration or not, nobody wants to work on anfunctionality is the only thing you need to move forward. Whileugly, hardly usable SharePoint Intranet. If you leave SharePoint asothers will argue that branding and a good user experience isit is and just stick your logo on it, it still does not give the user acrucial for user adoption.sense of ownership or belonging.vMy 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 yourmigration will fail if you do not brand SharePoint 2013 but you can bet users will be keep to pick up a brand new, good lookingSharePoint site. And keep using it every morning. Learn where and how to start branding SharePoint.

WHY YOUR SHAREPOINT MIGRATION FAILED15#10IGNORING 3RD PARTY TOOLSYes, these tools do cost money. But, considering the amount of time you can spend trying to migrate at a granular level, you will end upsaving a lot by simply using a third party tool.vIf you want to bring over just specific sites or libraries from within a select number of Site Collections, then it might be easier to usean existing solution for it. Tools like Sharegate can be a cost effective solution to hours of migration.OTHER REASONS UPGRADES HAVE FAILEDThere are many factors that drives a SharePoint migration to its failure. I am curiousto hear your experiences with these kinds of upgrades.Engage with me on Twitter@bniaulin