Intro
This blog will be one of a series of blogs that will discuss suggestions or best practices on migrating content from platforms such as Documentum eRoom and Lotus Notes to Microsoft SharePoint 2007. As a consultant for EMC Consulting, I’ve done a couple of these migrations and have some knowledge to share on how to do these types of migrations. EMC Consulting has done quite a few eRoom to SharePoint and Notes to SharePoint migrations over the past few years.
Our migrations utilized commercial migration tools. I don’t intent on discussing any approach or process that works specifically with any one migration tool. For the most part, approaches, processes and workflows I describe will be general and high-level enough to be migration tool agnostic.
Suggested eRoom to SharePoint migration approach
When developing an eRoom migration approach you will want to develop an approach that is efficient and can be repeatable for each eRoom being migrated. Needless to say, the migration should provide the best end-user experience possible while minimizing the burden on support personnel. One approach I found that worked for a number of eRoom migration engagements is a repeatable process that is broken down into a few phases each with tasks executed by different roles in the organization doing the migrations. The phases look like the following:
| Preparation Process |
| eRoom Freeze |
| Migration |
| Verification and Acceptance |
| SharePoint Site Release |
The migration for each eRoom would execute each phase in the order you see them in the table described above. While the details of each process will more or less be different for each organization conducting migrations, I think the following points are a good start for what each phase would entail:
Preparation Process
This process can be carried out by the individual owners or coordinators of each eRoom site and/or IT engineering people, to facilitate the automated process and to limit the amount of fine-tuning needed on the target SharePoint site. This may have and not be limited to the following tasks:
- Develop a list of users
- Provide references to end-user Training
- Remove any unwanted items before migration
- Run a pre-scan report to evaluate degree of difficulty to determine level of effort
eRoom Freeze
To preserve data integrity, this is the agreed upon date and time for all additions or modifications to the existing production eRooms to stop and allow the migration to proceed without user conflicts. The eRoom will usually be set to read-only and end-users would be notified during this phase.
Migration
This is the actual migration of the eRooms to SharePoint by way of automated or semi-automated means usually with the aid of a migration tool.
Verification and Acceptance
This phase entails validation of the migrated content on the new SharePoint site(s) by the individual eRoom owners or coordinators. You can compare inventories taken of the eRoom and new SharePoint site. They would also confirm security has been migrated with the content and that users can begin working in SharePoint.
SharePoint site release
The steps taken to make the new SharePoint site available for users. Usually, the original eRoom will still be accessible and set to read-only.
Other important Activities
Prior to migrating your eRooms, there are a number of things that you may want to do or even have to do to ensure successful migrations and improved end-user experience. Aside from a good project plan, this would include the selection of a migration tool, SharePoint configuration tweaks, eRoom tweaks and proper end-user communications:
Migration tool Selection
Migration tool selection can be a time consuming task because you will want to do the proper due diligence for selecting the right tool for your organization. This would mean applying a well thought out systematic approach that can include critical selection criteria, questionnaires to vendors, a repeatable test procedure you would run against each competing product, and scheduling of demonstrations from each vendor.
Documented critical success criteria will serve multiple purposes. It will allow you to execute a logical and systematic approach to selecting your tool. It can also be part of a questionnaire to the vendors you are considering for your project. Very importantly, you will eventually need to get approval from management for the purchase of a tool. A documented approach with documented selection criteria and test results for each tool tested will be justification for your final decision on the tool – this is the formal documentation you present to management when you’re asking them for the money to buy the tool :)
An example I have of Critical Success Criteria would be in the form of a spreadsheet and can also be used as a questionnaire to the vendors. The criteria would look something like, yet not be limited to, what you see below:
| | Does not go to the vendor | Does not go to the vendor |
| General | Criticality | Rating | Score (criticality x rating) |
| Does it require a staging storage location | | | |
| Does the tool require remote agents | | | |
| Can the migration tool be run on a separate server (other than the eroom or a MOSS server) | | | |
| Can the tool be run remotely | | | |
| Is the tool compatible with the latest eRoom version | | | |
| Is the vendor in good financial standing | | | |
| Does the vendor have case studies to present | | | |
| | | | |
| Specific Tool Functionality | | | |
| Does tool provide options to create site collections and/or subsites | | | |
| Do default eRoom roles migrate to default SharePoint groups | | | |
| Does the tool migrate custom eRoom roles | | | |
| eRoom folder to SharePoint document library permissions | | | |
| Does the tool migrate eRoom document item permissions | | | |
| Does tool assign/mapping metadata during migration | | | |
| Does tool assign or map content types during migration | | | |
| Are documents checked-in after migration | | | |
| Does tool migrate calendars | | | |
| Does tool merge calendars | | | |
| Does tool migrate project plans | | | |
| Does tool migrate project plan attachments | | | |
| Does tool migrate databases | | | |
| Does tool merge eRoom databases | | | |
| Does tool migrate database attachments | | | |
| Does tool translate links to new MOSS links (internal) | | | |
| Does tool migrate links (external) | | | |
| Does tool migrate notes | | | |
| Does tool support delta/incremental migrations | | | |
| Does tool support batch processing | | | |
| | | | |
| Reporting | | | |
| Does the tool have pre-migration reports | | | |
| Does the tool have post-migration reports | | | |
| Does the tool have additional reports | | | |
SharePoint Farm Preparation Considerations
To ensure all eRoom content successfully migrates, the following are suggested configurations on the SharePoint side that should be done prior to the start of any migration:
- Do not block any of the document types that reside in eRoom. This may be an option if the business requires ALL content to be migrated from eRoom to SharePoint. This can be configured under Central Administration > Operations > Blocked File Types
- Do not set default quota templates for the web application that will contain the migrated content OR you can specify a large default quota template. Default quota templates can be configured under Central Administration > Application Management > Web Application General Settings. This setting can also be temporary to ensure that all content is successfully migrated. Once content is migrated, administrators can set quota templates on the new SharePoint sites containing migrated eRoom content
- Select a single Web Front End server in the SharePoint farm for the migration tool to use to execute the eRoom migrations. You may limit end-user access to this WFE to minimize impact on end-user experience
- The migration tool may require intermediate storage space to execute migrations. Administrators must ensure there is enough storage to do the migrations
- You may still want to implement the maximum number of site collections per database based on policies that have been set. This can save you the work of having to move site collections from database to database after migrations are done
eRoom farm preparation considerations
You may want to consider the following tasks on the eRoom side to improve migration experience:
- It is highly recommended that administrators inventory all eRooms prior to the start of any migrations and decide what eRooms are still considered active. Consider what is still needed and what is not needed
- For eRooms being migrated, IF POSSIBLE AND PRACTICAL, owners can move all databases, projects, calendars, and contact list to the root level of the eRoom. This can speed up the migration process
- One option would be to group documents that are targeted to specific users/groups in separate root-level folders. These folders will translate to security specific document libraries
- Select a single Web Front End server in the eRoom farm for the migration tool to use to execute the eRoom migrations. You may limit end-user access to this WFE to minimize impact on end-user experience
End-user Communications
Proper communications before, during and after migrations can mean a big difference in the number of support calls you get from the end users and in turn a difference between good user experience and a bad user experience. Support incidents from users can be related to issues that occurred because of a migration or just simple questions that could have been answered in well crafted emails or documents.
The following may be content you should have in communications sent out to your users by way of emails or even a web site such as a wiki Q&A site:
Initial and subsequent emails
The emails contain text to eRoom users who will have their eRooms migrated describing the overview of the migration project:
- Timeframe of the project
- The content is going to the new SharePoint site (http://url…)
- A statement to the users that eRooms will not be created any longer
- State that inactive eRooms will be archived
- References to training options
- References to support options
- Specify an email account to send questions and concerns to
- Specify there will be additional communications on migration schedules for specific eRooms
To improve user experience, ISAPI filters or proxy servers can be used to automatically redirect users to their new SharePoint site when they attempted to access their old eRoom site. The redirection should be done after Validation and Acceptance of the migration.
Conclusion
The finer details of this approach will vary from organization to organization and what I described above is much easier said than done. Other tasks I haven’t covered would include development of a good project plan, process and workflow diagrams, escalation procedures, post migration checklists, SLAs, etc. Because migrations like these can be very complicated and time consuming, organizations will usually find themselves engaging with consulting services who specialize in eRoom to SharePoint migrations.
A special thanks goes to fellow consultants who have made major contributions to this article: Cathy LeDuc, Jie Lee, Joe Simon, Chris Wilper.
