A SharePoint migration is one of the best opportunities a business has to fix years of document sprawl. It is also one of the easiest Microsoft 365 projects to get wrong. Treat it as a lift-and-shift and the old folder chaos, broken permissions, duplicates and poor ownership simply move into SharePoint with a fresh coat of paint. Then everyone concludes that "SharePoint does not work". It does. You just moved the mess.
This checklist is how we stop that happening. If you want us to run it with you, that is literally what our SharePoint consultancy is for.
1. Define the purpose of the migration
If you cannot say why you are migrating, you cannot design the target. "Because the server is old" is a reason to move, but it is not a design.
| Check | Why it matters | Evidence / decision required | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business objective | The design depends on whether the goal is document management, intranet, Teams collaboration, compliance or replacing mapped drives. | Written purpose and success measures. | |
| Scope boundaries | Stops the project becoming an uncontrolled data dumping exercise. | Included file shares, excluded archives, departments and sites. | |
| Definition of done | Prevents technical completion being mistaken for user adoption. | Acceptance criteria, validation approach and support model. |
2. File share discovery
- Export top-level shares, folder sizes, item counts and last modified dates.
- Identify duplicated department folders and personal folders sitting in shared areas.
- Find file types that should not be migrated, including executables, old installation media, temporary files and historic backups.
- Review long paths and unsupported characters that may fail or behave poorly after migration.
- Identify files that users still access regularly versus archive data that should be retained but not actively migrated.
Be brutal here. Most file shares we audit are 30 to 50 percent dead weight. Paying to migrate files nobody has opened since 2016 is money for nothing.
3. Permissions review
| Check | Why it matters | Evidence / decision required | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inherited versus broken permissions | Broken inheritance is often where access problems or oversharing exist. | Folder permission export with inheritance status. | |
| Security groups | Groups may be poorly named, nested or undocumented. | AD groups, members, owners and purpose. | |
| Direct user permissions | Direct permissions make future management messy. | List of direct ACL assignments. | |
| External sharing requirement | SharePoint changes the external sharing model and needs governance. | External collaborators and sharing rules. |
4. Design the target information architecture
This is the bit that decides whether staff love or loathe the result. Our strong opinion: fewer sites, fewer libraries, sensible defaults. Complexity is easy to add and almost impossible to remove.
| Decision | Recommended approach | Anti-pattern to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Sites | Create sites around durable business functions, departments or major processes. | One giant site for the whole company. |
| Libraries | Use libraries where permissions, metadata or lifecycle differ. | Hundreds of libraries because every old folder became one. |
| Metadata | Use metadata where it improves filtering, retention or search. | Forcing users to complete dozens of fields. |
| Teams | Use Teams where active collaboration is needed. | Creating a Team for every migrated folder. |
| Archive | Separate archive from active working content. | Migrating everything into live libraries because it is easier. |
5. Migration execution checklist
- Run a pilot migration with a real department, not a sanitised test folder.
- Validate item counts, permissions, modified dates and key files after migration.
- Document any skipped files and agree a remediation plan.
- Freeze or throttle changes during final sync where required.
- Communicate the cutover clearly, including where users should work from on day one.
- Remove or make read-only old file shares when the migration is accepted.
Microsoft's SharePoint Migration Tool handles the mechanics for straightforward moves, and their migration planning guidance is a useful reference. The tool copies files. It does not design your structure.
6. Adoption and governance
- Create simple user guidance for where to store documents.
- Train site owners on permissions, sharing and recycle bins.
- Agree site owner responsibilities and review frequency.
- Use naming standards for sites, Teams and libraries.
- Review external sharing at tenant and site level.
- Plan lifecycle management for old sites, inactive Teams and archived content.
Practical warning: if users cannot understand the new structure in under five minutes, they will recreate the old folder mess somewhere else. SharePoint design must be simple enough to use without a consultant standing next to the user.
Book a Migration Readiness Assessment
Planning a SharePoint migration? We can assess your file shares, design a clean SharePoint structure and support a controlled migration that staff can actually use.
Book a Migration Readiness Assessment