SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint Online Migration for National Laboratory (LAB)

LAB decided to migrate SharePoint 2010 On-Premise environment to SharePoint Online in late summer 2018. Upon the decision to migrate to SharePoint, ITSD had the enormous task to perform in-depth analysis of the existing SharePoint 2010 site collections to determine what issues may occur during the migration, and more importantly, how to rapidly fix those issues according to Microsoft best practices. The list of issues ranged from broken data connections (to internal data endpoints), custom site templates, custom pages with scripts, web parts issues, workflows (OOTB and SharePoint Designer), broken links, master page and branding issues, site navigation, etc. Calabrae assisted ITSD staff with this analysis utilizing several tools, such as SMAT (SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool), AvePoint’s Power BI .pbix Report, and excel. The team used these tools to iterate through the 150+ site collections to create a list of issues and their severity. ITSD staff and Calabrae personnel utilized these tools to give LAB management and customers an accurate estimate on how long each site collection would take to migrate and remediate.

A crucial part of this migration was to identify and remedy the data connectivity issues that affected many applications needing access to LAB internal data. When migrated to the cloud and out of the security enclaves at LAB, those applications would become non-functional due to firewall and other security restrictions. ITSD staff and Calabrae personnel worked together with SQL, SAP, Server Admins, and Cyber Security experts to determine the best route to allow for those critical applications to access internal data endpoints. The following are solutions that allowed for this internal access:

• Allow access to specific SAP webservices from specific IP address groupings of the LAB SharePoint tenancy. Many InfoPath Forms hosted in SharePoint utilize an SAP webservice to query user information. The connectivity to this SAP webservice was critical to maintain the functionality of 20+ InfoPath forms. The solution was to expose the SAP webservice and allow for connectivity through UDCX (Universal Data Connection) files placed in data connection libraries in the site collection. The remediators would then add the appropriate UDCX connection file as a data connection in the InfoPath form.
• Utilizing PowerShell scripting and server timer jobs, Calabrae and ITSD staff queried internal systems from local servers and sync data to SharePoint lists. The scripts queried data from many different systems, such as .NET webservices, ColdFusion webservices, ColdFusion webpages, SQL Server, WordPress webpages and flat files.

During this migration, Calabrae personnel collaborated with ITSD Staff (developers, infrastructure admins, project managers, and management), third-party vendors such as AvePoint, and LAB customers. In many cases, especially for heavily customized site collections, Calabrae personnel would be dispatched to discuss directly with LAB customers the issues, one by one, that would result from the migration. During these interview sessions, in numerous cases, the team would learn that many of the identified issues could either be deleted, ignored, or simplified, which reduced the cost of the remediation. Calabrae personnel conducted dozens of these interviews and developed professional working relationships with many technical and non-technical people across the directorates at LAB.

The ITSD staff leadership created an excellent migration design and roll-out plan. Calabrae personnel worked closely with the entire team to meet the deadlines for each ‘Wave’ of site collection migrations. During this time, all remediators worked to resolve the hundreds of issues related to each site collection and were in constant communication as to roadblocks or other issues that may delay meeting the deadline. All deadlines were met, and the project was deemed a success due to a well-conceived plan, experienced remediators, streamlined communication between all team members, and close monitoring by project management.