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Empact IT Simplifies Complex SharePoint Migration, Saving Months of Time, for Financial Services Client with Metalogix Migration Solutions

"We could not have completed this task without Metalogix Migration Solutions and still have been able to extract as much of the metadata as we were able to extract without having to create some sort of custom software solution ourselves."

Alicia Crowder, IM Team Lead, Empact IT

THE CHALLENGE

Migrate a three-site SharePoint environment from WSS 3.0 to SharePoint 2013 for a growing financial services organization sites included numerous custom lists, forms and designs, complex workflows and multiple third party software integrations financial services business users could not be impacted during the migration process Empact IT is an expert in SharePoint migrations, yet when a long-term financial services client needed to migrate three intranet sites from WSS 3.0 to SharePoint 2013 applying standard migration practices wouldn’t do. There were many aspects to the project that added complexity including a hosting move, specialized customizations and integrated applications, and implementation of a new server environment in addition to the actual upgrade and migration effort.

Following a detailed meeting with the financial services organization stakeholders, the IA structure and new site design were identified to support the needs of the organization’s 800 SharePoint users. Empact IT then worked with its client to perform detailed data and document library clean up to minimize unnecessary data migration.

Even with the environment cleansed of unneeded data, the migration proved to be complex. It included numerous custom lists, forms and designs, complex workflows and multiple third party software integrations. To complete the migration within the client’s desired timeline, automation would be necessary. This became particularly apparent after a plan to stage the upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to 2010 and then to 2013 was invoked and the database attach method was attempted, but failed. After a few weeks of troubleshooting and evaluation, Empact IT received approval to purchase a migration automation solution.

“Our financial services client had a very elaborate environment,” said Alicia Crowder, IM Team Lead, Empact IT. “Because it was a much more complex migration with many customizations in addition to the regular sites with a lot of content, we needed a better tool to help.” After evaluating multiple options, Empact IT selected Metalogix.

Evaluating multiple options, Empact IT selected Metalogix.

THE SOLUTION

The SharePoint experts at Empact IT started with the smallest site that had the least business impact to the organization, migrating it into a test environment while allowing business users to continue working within their normal environments. Once the process was perfected, Empact IT then used Migration Solutions to migrate the rest of the three site environment.

“We could not have completed this task without Metalogix Migration Solutions and still have been able to extract as much of the metadata as we were able to extract without having to create some sort of custom software solution ourselves,” said Crowder. “That would have likely taken a year to fully conceive, plan, develop, test and deploy.”

THE RESULTS

Using Metalogix to automate SharePoint migration processes for its financial services customer, Empact IT was able to streamline migration workflow, ensuring that not only content was migrated, but also permissions and metadata as well. In all, Empact IT migrated more than 600 sites/sub-sites within the organization’s three separate intranet sites all without impacting user experience during the process. Once the migration was complete, users were switched over in one move to the new SharePoint 2013 environment.

“Metalogix Migration Solutions proved to be an efficient and effective tool,” added Crowder. “Plus, the customer support was outstanding. They were always fast to get back to me and willing to help without any issue. They helped to make this project a true success.”