Reply by Rahul Sapre from Prometix Pty Ltd on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 14:25

Greetings, Thanks for your query. Of course both the approaches are valid and they will provide you with the required outcomes, the selection of an approach depends upon various factors including number of users, amount of data, complexity of the email/exchange and many more. Here is a quick article by one of our consultants that will provide you with some basic reference information - http://www.prometix.com.au/its-not-a-race-transitioning-to-o365/#more-671 We could organise a quick phone call or a meeting to discuss your specific business needs and constraints to help you decide the correct approach. Regards, Rahul Sapre Engagement Manager Level 40, Northpoint Tower, 100 Miller St, North Sydney 2060 Email: Rahul.Sapre@prometix.com.au Phone: 0433 158 156 Web: www.Prometix.com.au

Reply by Lance Knight from Lucidity IT on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 14:29

There are many ways that this could be carried out depending upon your specific requirements. I wouldn't want to give you any definitive answers without understanding your needs & business setup. Generally speaking you can create hybrid setups, but this is usually involving an on-premise exchange environment. Emails & data can be treated separately to create a staged implementation for you. Happy to discuss your specific options & tailor a solution for you. Regards Dan Blunden Solutions Architect Lucidity IT dan.blunden@lucidityit.com.au 0414540880

Reply by Nick Mullen from Halkin IT on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 14:40

Hi Ric, If you are using Google Business you can migrate your users emails directly from Google to Office 365 when setting up Office 365. Its easy to do and painless. Nick Mullen Halkin IT

Reply by Jim Kolymbis from ATOMIC BUSINESS IT on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 14:49

Hi All users will need to be migrated to your new messaging platform before you go live. Your domain users cannot be on multiple email platforms. The migration process can be automated from google apps to office365. atomicBIT can assist with this and if you would like further info contact us below: Jim Kolymbis atomicBIT jim@atomicbit.com.au 02 9098 5050 www.atomicbit.com.au

Reply by Matt Walton from Infoxchange on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 15:12

It's great to hear that you are looking at taking advantage of the free Microsoft Office 365 offering for not for profits. Most of our clients are now using Office 365 successfully and many that we have helped move across form the Google platform are enjoying the benefits of the full Office 365 suite. The migration process from Google to Office 365 does require some planning and some technical expertise and there are a few different ways this can be done. So we would recommend partnering with an organisation who has done this before to ensure you can mitigate the risks and reduce the impact on your users. As mentioned by some of the other responses, it does depend on your requirements, what content you have and what apps you are using, so it is difficult to give a definitive answer here. This webinar that I ran should give you a few tips - http://mig1.cisa.asn.au/learn/articles/office-365-implementation-considerations-july-2016-webinar. Another great way to find out more information about the process and develop a plan is to conduct an Office 365 Readiness Assessment which will provide you with a comprehensive plan and recommendations by one of our Office 365 experts with experience doing these type of migrations - http://mig1.cisa.asn.au/discount/office-365-readiness-assessment/microsoft-office-365-readiness-assessment. During this process after we understand your requirements we could provide you some of the benefits and issues with trying to stage this type of migration and what tools would be most appropriate to use. Feel free to contact me directly on mwalton@infoxchange.org

Reply by Chris from Far Edge Pty Ltd on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 15:13

How many users are you talking about? In general I'd suggest doing them all at the same time. You can't have email in both places at once, but you can have other parts (docs etc) if you really have to. Basic model is - setup new tenancy, login, make sure things are working, document templates / workflows and everything that needs migration / conversion has been accounted for. Once you've tested that these work, then schedule a time for the migration (Friday afternoon is a common target). Then you can start migrating actual user desktop / mobile devices that afternoon / Monday etc. If you're talking thousands of users then you might stagger it or if there are particular challenges that make it difficult to get all the users done at once - but normally - do them in one batch. Any questions let me know, Chris 02 84251430 chris.herrmann@faredge.com.au

Reply by Steve Bungay from Envision IT on Friday, 18 November, 2016 - 15:15

You can take a phased approach but preferably you should go for it in one go to minimise disruption and reduce costs of migration. The service provider will prioritise the tasks anyway. As it is a major activity, I would recommend you to look at other things that you may be needing either now or in future. These things usually arise sooner than later. This adds to creep in scope, time (means disruption), costs and creates frustration and avoidable stress.