Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Step by Step Guide
Summary: –
“Office 365 tenant to tenant migration Step by Step” this has become quite a popular query as Office 365 is standard setup for the purpose of documentation, communication and so much more among all industries.
And since today all the industries are booming, leading to mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring there is a need for a seamless way to migrate office 365 to another tenant. Any mistake and there would be a disruption in activities & mailboxes of all the stakeholders, and the highly valuable data of companies could be lost.
This blog is the latest and complete guide for properly planning, executing and making sure everything is done properly all while safeguarding data and ensuring smooth user experience.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
- What to Consider in Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
- Why migrate Office 365 to another tenant?
- Phases of Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
- Step-by-step Guide To Migrate Office 365 to another tenant
- Challenges We Face When Migrate Office 365 Tenant to Another Tenant
- Best Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Tool
- Quick Steps to Migrate Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Using Tool
- Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Step by Step – Using Automated Tool
- Key Features of an Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Utility
- Conclusion
- FAQs: Migrate Office 365 to Another Tenant
Understanding Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
Office 365 tenant is a very popular dedicated space allotted by Microsoft cloud service to a particular company. An office 365 tenant to tenant migration means transfer or combine between two different Microsoft 365 tenants along with all the data and features that stakeholders use like SharePoint data, teams, email etc.
General Scenarios where one needs to move office 365 to another tenant:
- Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)
- Company Rebranding or Domain Changes
- Splitting off Business Units
- Data Consolidation
Now lets have a more compressive look on office 365 tenant to tenant migration step by step.
What to Consider in Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
There are several important technical and organizational consideration, so as one can efficiently migrate as if done improperly it effects the wok of employees and lead to corruption on loss of company data. Here is an Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Checklist that you can take into account:
- Identify source and destination of the tenants setup including users, roles, licenses and configuration.
- Decide when and how you’ll switch over the email routing so that nobody’s emails get lost or delayed.
- Make sure the end users are inform about possible downtimes & login changes.
- Create a plan for apps integrated with office 365 services such as CRM, HR tools, or third-party platforms.
- Estimate mailbox sizes, OneDrive files, Teams channels, and tag sensitive data for special handling.
- Choose a reliable Office 365 migration tool to support batch transfers, delta sync, and metadata preservation.
- Manage permissions and sharing settings during cross-tenant mailbox migration.
- Cross check if everything is done smoothly.
If you follow all the above steps and pointers you will be prepared for a risk free smooth and managed process to migrate office 365 to another tenant
Why migrate office 365 to another tenant?
Before we get started to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant, lets understand some common reasons behind it.
A tenant in Office 365 refers to the entire Office 365 suite associated with a domain(eg: yourcompanyname.onmicrosoft.com). This allows all of your organization’s data to sit in the same environment and move easily within the tenants. Other major tenant data include Exchange Server data (which is used to store email messages) and Active Directory data (which stores user account information). But what does that actually mean? So, let’s understand about Office 365 tenant with an image for an easy Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step.
In this image, we see two different companies Office 365 Tenant accounts. It has an Exchange and Active Directory that connect every employee to their mailbox. Both companies access separate email mailboxes. If these two companies decided to merge into one company, then they would need Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step.
This is not an ordinary task. Sometimes, there are many users inside an Office 365 tenant account. So, if you are one of those who want to migrate office 365 emails to new tenant, then download the recommended software.
Read Also – How to Migrate Office 365 to Gmail?
Phases of Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration
The process of transfer office 365 to another tenant will vary across organization and scenarios. Whether you’re moving your company’s user accounts from your own servers into Microsoft’s cloud, or you’re combining different Microsoft cloud tenants into one. But there is something common that all the processes have I.E. their phases.
We can complete the entire migration process in 3 phases:
- Pre-migration
- Execution
- Post-migration
Through the table given below you can easily identify what steps come under what phases of office 365 tenant to tenant migration
| Pre-Migration Phase | Execution Phase | Post-Migration Phase |
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Step-by-step Guide To Migrate Office 365 to another tenant
In the following we have provided complete complete guide for Office 365 tenant to tenant migration step by step. However, before you migrate from Office 365 Tenant to new Tenant, you need to do some pre planning:
Step 1: Domain preparation
Users have to follow these steps for preparing domain
- Make sure that you have license for target Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration.
- Then, create admin accounts in both the source and target for having smooth migration.
- Now, user have to create user mailboxes, room/resource mailboxes, and distribution groups in the target.
- Perform AD DS consolidation using AD DS tools and sync source domain with the target domain manually or using synchronization (if needed).
- It is mandatory to train end users regarding the post-migration use of Microsoft 365.
Step 2: Domain Verification
- In Microsoft 365 start verification of target tenant domain.
- Then, add source domain in the target Microsoft 365 admin center and create TXT records in DNS.
Note: Make sure the domain is in use only by one tenant. Else, the verification will fail and you can not proceed Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step. After completing this process, it will take around 72 hours for the change to be noticed.
Step 3: Schedule Migration
- First, generate a list of user mailboxes that are to be migrated and for mapping create a CSV file.
- Write down the lowest value of TTL on MX record (of the primary email domain).
- Disable directory sync for the source tenant (from Microsoft 365 admin center) to avoid sync of any modifications in source tenant account AD DS to Microsoft 365 platform. Minimum 24 hours will be needed to complete the disabling process.
Step 4: Migration stage
We will now discuss how you can successfully establish office 365 tenant to tenant migration without tool:
- Top inbound mail flow
Stop inbound mail flow to the source tenant by changing the primary MS record to an unreachable value or by using any third-party application for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration. As you have noted the lowest value of TTL on MX record of your primary email domain in the preparation stage, you can easily plan the time of this step.
- Preparing source tenant
Before migrate office 365 mailbox to another tenant, the primary mail domain should be erased from all objects in the source tenant.
- Reset the default email address to the initial email address of Microsoft Office 365.
- Delete all the Lync licenses from the source tenant with the help of Lync Admin Portal.
- Then, reset the default email address of distribution lists, rooms, resources to the initial domain.
- From all tenant objects remove the secondary email address to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant.
- In the Windows PowerShell, run the command Get-MsolUser -DomainName xyz.com that will retrieve all the objects which are still using the primary email address or refusing the removal.
- Preparation of target domain
This process involves verifying the source tenant in the target domain for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration.
- First, configure the auto-discover CNAME.
- When you use AD FS, then configure a new domain in target tenant for AD FS.
- Now, activate the new user accounts in the target domain and then assign licenses.
- On the new users, set the source domain as the primary email address. Also, communicate the passwords to end users.
- When the user mailboxes are active, change mail routing and point the MX record to the new Office 365 email address.
- Finally, test the mail flow in and out of the target tenant.
Now, begin the migration process
- When user have 500 users or less, then migrate the mail calendar and contacts separately to the destination tenant mailbox. For migrating email, limit the transfer by any criteria like a date.
- When you have more than 500 users, then use the multi-pass method to migrate the contents in multiple batches. User can migrate only contacts, calendars, and a single week of data.
It is time to decide the migration method. User can also decide the type and amount of data to be migrated. Migration process can be accomplished using PowerShell scripts.
With the help of above method we can establish office 365 tenant to tenant migration without tool as this method relies heavily on tools Native to Microsoft which is not a one size fit all scenario, requires deep technical PowerShell skills and have a lot of gaps in features available.
That’s why third-party migration applications are recommended as these applications offer complete control over the migration along with quick and efficient processes automatically.
Recommended: 3 Methods to Migrate Office 365 Account to Another Account
Challenges We Face When Migrate Office 365 Tenant to Another Tenant
There are a lot of challenges which users are facing while performing Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step. We have listed some of them below:
- Risk of Prolonged Downtime: If mail flow isn’t switched precisely user experience delay, bounce back and login issues during transitions.
- Multiple workloads migration complexity: When one migrate office 365 to another tenant they are migrating entire migrate office 365 to another tenant, which makes the task complex as everything is connected, you need the access to both the domains.
- Risk of Data Loss: This procedure can also lead to data loss and corruption as billions of items available in diverse data types. While moving office 365 domain to another tenant human error can lead to misconfiguration.
- Third-party integrations: CRMs, security apps, or internal workflows tied to the old tenant may break post-migration if not reconfigured properly.
Best Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Tool
BitRecover is one of the popular company for handling large projects with its professional tools. The technical support center is also there wherever you need guidance. BitRecover Office 365 Backup Tool helps you to move mailbox between Office 365 within the same and different domain. This migration application is one of the most reliable utility to help get the desired solution easily.
Quick Steps to Migrate Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Using Tool
Follow the below steps to move mailbox from Office 365 Tenants: –
- Launch your chosen Office 365 tenant to tenant migration too
- Enter credentials of Your Current Office 365 Tenant to connect.
- Select the required Tenant user mailboxes data to migrate.
- Choose Office 365 option in saving option to move Tenant data.
- Connect Your New (Destination) Office 365 Tenant and Start migrating.
Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Step by Step – Using Automated Tool
1. Download Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Tool on Windows Machine.
Note: – The trial software allows you to migrate 25 emails from each Office 365 Tenant mailbox to another tenant account. If you want to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant account with all emails, then upgrade the software with the license key.
2. After that, launch the software on your computer enter your office 365 id (yourname.companyname.onmicrosoft.com) >> Click Login for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step.
You can also use “I am Admin” option to login Office 365 Tenant administrator account.
3. Thereafter, enter your Office 365 account credentials (Password ) to connect with user mailboxes.
4. After that, choose the mailboxes folders which you want to migrate. Here, you can select the complete mailboxes if you want to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant with complete data one by one.
5. Thereafter, select Office 365 option in the list of file saving options to proceed further for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step.
6. After that, enter the credential of the email you need to migrate emails on the destination migration.
7. Use Advance filter option for more personalized selection.
8. Now, click on the “Backup” button to move office 365 domain to another tenant.
Also Read: The Complete Solution to Migrate Office 365
Key Features of an Office 365 Tenant to Tenant Migration Utility
- Migrate Complete Office 365 Tenant Mailbox Data, Emails, Calendars, Contacts, Tasks, Notes to Another.
- Supports Office 365 Groupware and Shared Mailboxes Migration process.
- Transfer Emails and Mailboxes between different Office 365 Tenant Domains.
- Move employee and user mailbox from one Office 365 Tenant branch to another Office 365 tenant branch in the same Domain.
- Advance mode to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant with selective mailbox folders.
- Maintains Office 365 Exchange and Active Directory data while moving move office 365 to another tenant.
- If you want fast migration, the tool needs a break free Internet connection to migrate Office 365 tenants mailboxes faster.
- Works on all Microsoft Windows operating systems including Server editions.
Conclusion
In this article, we have explained the way for Office 365 Tenant to Tenant migration step by step. With the use of recommend tool users can perform this task. Users can easily migrate emails, contacts, calendars, notes, tasks from one Office 365 Tenant to Another. It is a straightforward process to migrate Office 365 Tenant to another Tenant that requires nothing more than account login credentials. If you have any issues with the software and its process, then contact us on live chat support.
Read More : Free & Affordable Alternatives to Microsoft 365
FAQs: Migrate Office 365 to Another Tenant
Q1. How do I migrate Azure from one tenant to another tenant?
Migrating Azure resources between tenants is a manual process where you will need to transfer subscriptions, reassign roles, and reconfigure services. For email, use an automated solution during Office 365 tenant to tenant migration step by step.
Q2. How do I transfer my Office 365 account to another tenant?
In order to successfully migrate Office 365 to another tenant you need to firstly verify domains, then set up user accounts in the destination ensuring mailboxes, calendars, and SharePoint data all are migrated properly.
Q3. How long does a tenant-to-tenant migration take?
Transfer Office 365 to another tenant although dependent on data volume and complexity can typically take up to 24–72 hours. The process also involves time for planning, execution, and post-migration validation.
Q4. What is a Microsoft Office 365 tenant?
Microsoft provides each company with a dedicated space in cloud storage, known as a Microsoft 365 tenant via a subdomain like yourcompanyname.onmicrosoft.com. It hosts mail, Teams, OneDrive, and other services.
Q5. Does Microsoft have native tools to migrate Office 365 to another tenant?
Yes! Microsoft offers PowerShell scripts and native options. But since manual methods are technical and risky, we recommend using an automated tool for transferring form one office 365 to another tenant.
Q6. How do I know the migration was successful?
An Office 365 migration from one tenant to another is considered successful when mailbox data, OneDrive, Teams, and email flow are validated. Automated migration tools also provide logs to confirm success.
Q7. What are the common challenges when we move office 365 to another tenant?
Common issues include data loss, excess downtime, DNS errors, user login problems, missing shared data, and the need for technical skills. These can be avoided with proper planning and the use of recommended too.