MICROSOFT TEAMS TO GOOGLE SPACES MIGRATION GUIDE
1. Microsoft Teams To Google Spaces Migration : Introduction
Cloudiway provides an automated migration process that helps you quickly and easily move your data from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces, saving time and reducing the risk of data loss compared to manual migration or other solutions. Our platform allows you to migrate most of your content from Microsoft Teams into Google Space such as channels, files, messages, and chat messages (not yet ready), and preserves your metadata (createdBy, CreatedTime, etc).
2. What's Migrated
Public Channels
Private Channels that the service account can access
Members of channels
Messages and replies
Chat Messages of consenting users ( Not yet implemented)
MetaData (Created by, TimeStamp)
@Mentions of users only, not group or everyone mentions
Default emojis
Files
Links in messages
Links to a document or image, as long as the document or image was also migrated
Web page links
Links that open in a new tab, as long as the link has been opened
3. Migrate Chat Messages
Not yet implemented.
4. Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces Migration Prerequisites
Security
We take your privacy and security seriously at Cloudiway, and have invested significant effort into securing our platform and your data.
Cloudiway infrastructure is fully hosted in Microsoft Azure, and leverages Azure Security certifications. We work closely with Microsoft and are fully involved in large migrations managed by Microsoft. As such, Cloudiway passed the Microsoft SSPA (Supplier Security & Privacy Assurance Program) certification ( Supplier Security & Privacy Assurance )
More information about Cloudiway security is available here: About Cloudiway Security
Challenges
Migrating from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces can be a migration challenge for several reasons:
Data compatibility: Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces use different data structures and formatting, which can result in data loss or incorrect formatting during the migration process.
Different feature sets: Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces have very different user interfaces, so workflows and user experiences are varied across the two platforms. Recreating the same experience is challenging, and dependent on migrating all of the information from Microsoft Teams into Google Spaces.
Performance issues: Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces limit importing and exporting internal information to protect their infrastructures, which can cause large migrations to be stopped before they’re done. Incomplete migrations can result in significant data corruption and data loss. This may result in incorrectly formatted messages as they migrate from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces, as well as the loss of properties such as timestamps, @mentions, emojis, and users. They also protect their uses, and there are additional steps required to migrate private data such as chat messages.
Mitigation:Cloudiway mitigates many of these challenges by providing an automated migration process, support and assistance throughout the migration, and customization options to meet the specific needs of your organization. The unique Self Service solution of Cloudiway will allow your users to trigger their own migration and migrate their private messages, making the Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces migration challenges easier.
Performances
When migrating from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces, it is important to consider two performance aspects to ensure a successful migration:
Data size: The amount of data being migrated can impact the migration’s performance. Large amounts of data can slow down the migration process, while smaller amounts of data can be migrated more quickly. It’s important to consider the size of the data (ie number of messages) being migrated and plan accordingly.
Infrastructure: The infrastructure used for the migration, including servers and storage, can impact the performance of the migration. The Cloudiway migration platform uses all available resources to provide the fastest migration possible, allowing us to support migrations of all sizes. Our on-demand migration engine allocates the capacity that you need to migrate the volume of data of your choice in the time slot you have allocated.
Both Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces APIs have built-in throttling mechanisms that are impacted by both data size and infrastructure. Throttling refers to limiting the rate of incoming and outgoing requests to the Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces servers, which is designed to maintain the performance and stability of their services. For example, they can limit the number of requests per second, or the number of messages that can be read or written in a set range of minutes. They can also limit the rate and number of messages that can be written to a Google Spaces channel. When that limit is reached, they will throttle the calls, and no additional messages will be migrated.
The Cloudiway platform follows the Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces API recommendations in terms of throttling prevention, but it is generally not sufficient for channels with a huge number of messages ( more than 5000 messages). We provide 3 features to help bypass these throttling limitations:
Allowing migration of the latest messages to the channel, and users can easily find and reply to their latest messages.
Older messages can be migrated or archived to an HTML file accessible through a shortcut tab in the channel.
Filtering options to migrate a certain number of latest messages or messages posted after a set date.
Features
The Cloudiway migration platform provides several essential features that will ease your migration and offer significant flexibility options such as the ability to schedule your migration ahead of time, or reorganize your channels. You can consolidate your channels into a single team, or migrate them to different teams depending on your organization’s unique needs.
Built with flexibility and power in mind, Cloudiway’s platform has a wide range of tools available for your use. These tools include:
Feature | Details |
|---|---|
Discovery | The discovery process (Get List) retrieves the list of Teams channels and users, and automatically populates your migration list. |
Audit | The Audit will browse each source channel and retrieve the number of messages to give you the full scope of your migration. |
Pre-processing | Pre-Processing will automatically recreate your target Spaces and channels and reassign the permissions appropriately. |
Migration | The migration process itself will migrate your files and messages and preserve most metadata. Migration is not destructive. It connects to the source in read-only mode and makes a copy of the data at the target. |
Delta Passes | The platform supports delta passes, which means that whenever you restart the migration of an already migrated channel, only new data created since the last pass will be migrated to eliminate duplicated content. |
Self-Service Migration for Chat Messages | Not Yet Implemented |
Dashboard | The Cloudiway dashboard allows the administrator of the migration to monitor their migration and have oversight of the progress of the migration. |
SAAS instance/dedicated instance hosted by Cloudiway or on the customer side | Cloudiway migration is a SAAS platform. For security reasons, you may not want to have your data shared or mixed with other customer data. To address this, Cloudiway offers 3 ways of working:
|
APIs | Migration can be fully automated through the use of the Cloudiway rest APIs. |
Benefits
Cloudiway offers several key benefits that can be crucial to the success of your migration.
Automated migration: Our automated migration process quickly and easily moves an organization’s data from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces without requiring manual operation.
Data mapping and transformation: Cloudiway allows organizations to map and transform their data during migration, ensuring that the data is correctly structured and formatted for Google Spaces. This improves the overall quality of the data and ensures a smooth transition.
Minimal downtime: Cloudiway’s migration process is designed to minimize downtime and disruption to the organization, allowing teams to continue working without interruption.
Customizable migration: Organizations are able to customize the migration process to meet their specific requirements. This can include selecting the data to be migrated, mapping specific data fields, and adjusting the migration process to suit their specific needs.
Support and assistance: We provide additional support and assistance throughout the migration process and are available through a variety of means to answer any questions that may come up during the migration process. This can include documentation, training, technical support, and ongoing assistance throughout the migration.
Using Cloudiway to migrate from Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces can help organizations move their data quickly and effectively, minimize downtime and disruption, and ensure a successful transition to Google Spaces.
Before you being your migration, there are several key steps that need to be completed first. Make sure that you follow these steps in order, or there may be obstacles when running the migration itself.
5. Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces Migration Process
Microsoft Teams Prerequisites
Migration uses a mix of Graph APIs and CSOM calls. Therefore it requires to configure specific permissions at the source to execute Graph and CSOM calls.
First, we recommend to create an account dedicated to the migration, that can be deleted once the migration is completed.
- The migration account needs a Microsoft 365 Teams License.
- For CSOM access, it must be SharePoint administrator.
- It must not be configured with multi-factored authentication (MFA) or SSO (ADFS).
- To perform the migration, the migration account needs to be an Owner and a Member of the Group/Team. If your source migration account is not Owner and Member of the Team, the migration engine will add it automatically.
Google Prerequisites
Migration uses Google Space Apis.
Cloudiway needs the following permissions.
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.spaces
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.import
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.memberships
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.messages
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.spaces.readonly
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.bot
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly
For more information about scopes, please refer to the Google article:
Cloudiway Prerequisites
Microsoft Teams Migration requires 2 kind of Cloudiway licenses:
- Licenses for migrating Channels
- Licenses for migrating User Chat Messages
Please reachout Cloudiway Sales to request for pricing and quote.
The migration is a seven step process.
Create the connectors for connecting to the source and the target .
Run a Discovery (GetList) or upload your list from a CSV file.
Configure the target location and Target Connectors
Fill the Mapping Table.
Run an Audit to fully scope the scale of the migration, including how much data will need to be migrated. This step is optional.
Run a Pre-Processing to pre-create the target Google Space and migrate the permissions.
Run the migration.
5.1 Create Your Connectors
To facilitate the Microsoft Teams to Google Spaces migration, the Cloudiway platform needs to be able to communicate with both your source and target domains. To do this, Cloudiway uses connectors. You will need to set up a connector for each source tenant and each target tenant.
Azure AD Application
Graph APIs calls are performed through an Azure Active Directory Application which is granted specific permissions.
You can either create an Azure Active Directory Application manually or let the platform create one for you.
Please consult how to create the Azure Active Directory Application and associated permissions.
Microsoft 365 connector
To configure your Microsoft 365 connector, proceed with the steps in the following article : Microsoft 365 Connector Configuration
Google connector
To configure your Google connector, proceed with the steps in the following article : Google Workspace connector configuration.
For large projects, it’s possible to create multiple connectors that will be used in parallel. Please contact Cloudiway Consulting Services if you need to set up such a configuration.
5.2 Discovery
There are three ways to retrieve or upload your Teams; Run a Get List, upload a CSV, or manually create a single channel.
Note about “Allow External Members”
It corresponds to the External Members flag in Google Spaces that can be set only at creation time.
Option 1 : Get List
To retrieve or upload your Microsoft Teams, select the Group List tab under the Sites product.
Under MIGRATION , click on the Get List option:
Select your source pool connector and Click Get to Start the process
You can monitor the progress of this task in the logs. The amount of time it takes to compile the list will depend on how much content you are migrating from Microsoft Teams. On average, you should get the list within 5 minutes.
Once the list is retrieved, you need to assign a target connector to the entries by configuring the target location.
Option 2 : CSV Import File
The second way to edit the Microsoft Teams migration list is to upload a CSV file.
Check this article for generating the CSV file correctly: https://help.cloudiway.com/article/how-to-fill-the-users-groups-csv-file/
Click MANAGE > Import. Select the CSV File, the Source, and Target Connectors, then click Upload.
After uploading a CSV file, there is no need to define the source and target location.
Option 3: Manual Creation
The third way to edit the Microsoft Teams migration list is to manually create an entry.
Click the MANAGE tab, and from the drop-down list click Create:
For Source Group Name, add an existing Team.
5.3 Set the Target Connector
If you want to mass assign a target connector to your objects in the list, you can select them and from the menu, click on MANAGE, then Assign Target.
In the same way, you can add a prefix to several entries at the same time
Add a Prefix to the Target?
You can add a Prefix to the Target Group Name and the Target Group Email Address.
In the Group List, check one or more objects that you want to add a prefix to. Go to MANAGE, then click Add Prefix.
Enter the Prefix in the pop-up and click SAVE.
5.4 Mapping Table
In Microsoft Teams, there are permissions and metadata (createdby, modifiedby, etc.) that contain email addresses. During the migration, these addresses must be converted into target accounts.
Cloudiway uses a mapping table to perform the conversion: the mapping table must be exhaustive because any email address not present in the mappinbg table will not be converted to the matching target address and you would endup with loss of permissions or metadata .
Cloudiway automatically populates the mapping table during the Discovery process. Anyway it is your responsibility to check and validate the mapping table before starting the migration as entries may be missing or emails may be different at the target. This may happen if not all the users and groups are provisioned at the destination.
5.5 Audit
The audit is optional and purely informative. You do not have to run it unless you want to see how many channels, files, and folders you have in the source Microsoft Team.
This feature reports information about the Teams:
Number of conversations
Number of files
To Audit a Microsoft team, in Group List, select it and click MIGRATION > Audit.
5.6 Preprocessing
The pre-processing tool creates the Space at the target if it doesn’t already exist and migrates membership and ownership.
To pre-process a team, in Group List, select it and click MIGRATION > Pre-Processing.
The Microsoft Team is now ready to be migrated.
5.7 Migration
Once you have run the Microsoft Team’s pre-processing, you’re ready to start the migration. In Group List, select it and click on MIGRATION, Start.
This will schedule the migration. The migration will start as soon as there is a free spot on the platform.
You can monitor your migration by clicking on the team on the list.
The migration is now complete. You should have full access to your Teams channel information in your Google Spaces environment.
5.8 Chat Messages Migration
Chat messages are considered private data and cannot be accessed by the company or by an administrator. However Chat messages can be accessed and migrated if the user gives his consent to access the messages. The cloudiway platform is asking the user consent and once done is migrating the messages to the user chats.
To address potential performance issues, several options are available to limit the number of calls in Microsoft Teams and Google Spaces
– Migrate all messages
– Migrate the x most recent messages (default 1000)
– Migrate messages more recent than data
– Migrate messages older than date in HTML file uploaded to Google Drive rather than in the chats.
6. Troubleshooting
Cloudiway provides an extensive knowledge base with many resources, including common error messages, video guides, and downloads.
Please visit the knowledgebase here: https://help.cloudiway.com
6.1 Support
Support tickets are opened through the platform.
Once logged in, go to your project and select Help, then Support. The chatbot will ask you a couple of questions and then open a support ticket. You will receive an email response to your ticket, and you can continue the support by email.
More information regarding our support program is available here: Support Home Page
7. FAQ
How many Microsoft Teams migration licenses will I need?
One migration license is required per Microsoft Team. If you are migrating chat messages of your users, one User Client Access License is required per user (not yet implemented)
Please contact sales to get a complete quote.
