GOOGLE GROUPS THROUGH VAULT MIGRATION TO OFFICE 365

1. Overview

Google Groups is a service provided by Google that allows people to create and participate in online discussions and forums. It enables users to create mailing lists, discussion forums, and other types of online communities.

Google Groups makes it easy to join and create groups based on topics of interest. Users can share messages, files, and other types of content with their group, as well as collaborate and work together on projects. Additionally, it provides features such as moderation tools, spam filtering, and customizable email options.

If you are planning to move from Google To Microsoft Office 365, this guide will show you how and where to migrate your content.

2. Introduction

Cloudiway provides an automated migration process that helps organizations quickly and easily move their data from Google Groups to Office 365. This can save you time and reduce your risk of data loss compared to manual migration or other solutions.

Google Groups to Office 365 migration allows you to migrate your content from Google Groups but also recreate the groups and membership at the target.

3. Migration Challenges

Migrating from Google Groups to Office 365 can involve several challenges. Some of the key migration challenges are:

The proper selection of the target. Google and Office 365 work differently, and Office 365 does not have the same notion of Group as Google. Where will you transfer your Google group: In a unified Group? In a Shared Mailbox? In an Office 365 team?

User Access: The migration process may interrupt the user’s access to their email and other collaborative tools, and it may require the IT team to notify users of any changes in the access or functionality of the tools.

Permissions and membership: Google Groups may have custom permissions set up for different users and groups, which may not translate directly to Office 365. The IT team may need to evaluate and adjust permissions settings and membership for Office 365 to ensure a smooth migration.

Data Loss: Some data may be lost or corrupted during the migration process.

Testing: Before the migration process, thorough testing is necessary to ensure that data is migrated correctly and that all settings and permissions are transferred over correctly.

Overall, migrating from Google Groups to Office 365 can be a complex and time-consuming process that requires careful planning, execution, and monitoring to ensure a successful outcome. It is essential to have a detailed migration plan and a qualified IT team to oversee the process.

4. Features

The Cloudiway migration platform provides several essential features that will facilitate your migration. Essentially, the platform allows you to recreate the groups at the target and match your choices ( Shared mailbox, Unified Group, Teams) and migrate the membership accordingly.

The platform offers sufficient flexibility to let you migrate your groups to the appropriate target. Depending on your needs will select the right target for your groups.

Differences between shared mailboxes, Unified groups, and teams.

Shared Mailboxes: A shared mailbox is a mailbox that multiple users can use to read and send an email message. A shared mailbox, like the distribution list, has an email address. But the main difference is that it has physical storage associated with it and messages are stored in the shared mailbox. Therefore, it may be an appropriate target for migrating the content of the Google Group.

When you select a Shared Mailbox as a target, emails stored in the Google group would be migrated as mails in the shared mailbox.

Unified Groups: Unified groups, also known as Microsoft 365 Groups (formerly Office 365 groups) are used for collaboration between users. They will always have an associated team site, no matter where or how they are created. A Microsoft 365 Group is an object in Azure Active Directory with a list of members and a coupling to related workloads including a SharePoint team site, shared Exchange mailbox, Planner, and OneNote notebook.

When you select a Unified group as a target, emails stored in the Google group will be migrated to the mailbox of the unified group.

Teams: When you create a team, a Microsoft 365 group is created to manage the team’s membership. The group’s related services, such as a SharePoint site, Power BI workspace, etc. are created at the same time. So when creating a Team, you will also create a Microsoft 365 Group in the background which is used by the Team for group membership management. Further, the Team will be provisioned with resources like a document library (SharePoint site), which the Microsoft 365 Groups provide. Additionally, you will have communication services like chat, voice calling, video calling, and meetings.

When you select Teams as a target, emails stored in the Google group will be migrated to the mailbox of the Team.

4.1 Discovery (GetList)

The discovery process (Get List) retrieves the list of groups defined in Google.
It automatically populates your migration list.

4.2 Audit

The Audit will retrieve the number of messages stored in each group and its membership.

4.3. Pre-process

Pre-Processing will automatically recreate your target objects (shared mailboxes, unified groups, teams) and migrate the membership and permissions.

4.4 Migration

The migration will migrate the messages and preserve most of the metadata.
Migration is not destructive. It connects to the source in read-only mode and makes a copy of the data at the target.

4.5 Delta Passes

The platform supports delta passes. It means that only data created since the last pass will be remigrated whenever you restart the migration of an already migrated channel.

4.6 Dashboard

The cloudiway dashboard allows the administrator of the migration to monitor the migration and get an idea of the overall progress of the migration.

4.7 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 proposes 3 ways of working:

On the SAAS platform, each project data is stored in a dedicated SQL instance and each migration is run in separate processes.
If this segmentation of data is not sufficient, you can ask to migrate from a dedicated instance.
The migration platform can also be installed in your own Azure data center.

4.8 APIs

Migration can be fully automated through the use of the Cloudiway rest APIs.

5. Security

We take your privacy and security seriously at Cloudiway, and we have invested significant effort into making our platform and your data secure.

Cloudiway infrastructure is fully hosted in Microsoft Azure and fully leverages Azure Security certifications.

Internally, Cloudiway is preparing its ISO 27001 certification and should be certified ASAP.

Cloudiway works closely with Microsoft and is fully involved in large migrations managed by Microsoft. As such Cloudiway passed the Microsoft SSPA (Supplier Security & Privacy Assurance Program) certification (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/procurement/sspa?activetab=pivot1%3aprimaryr6 )

More information about Cloudiway security is available here: https://help.cloudiway.com/article/about-cloudiway-security/

6. Performance

When migrating from Google Groups to Office 365, it is important to consider several performance aspects to ensure a successful migration.

Data size: The amount of data being migrated can have an impact on the performance of the migration.

Google API and Microsoft API have built-in throttling mechanisms. Throttling refers to the limiting of the rate of incoming and outgoing requests to the Google and Office 365 servers, designed to maintain the performance and stability of their services. Consequently, they are limiting the number of requests per second, the number of messages that can be read or written by a period of n minutes, etc…

Google Groups messages are extracted from Google using Google Vault APIs.

Google Vault has several limits defined here: https://developers.google.com/vault/limits

The cloudiway platform is taking care of these limits and is extracting content at the maximum allowed rate.

Similarly, it is pushing content to the target at the maximum rate authorized by the Exchange, Teams, and Graph APIs.

7. Benefits

Cloudiway is a cloud-based migration tool that offers a variety of benefits for organizations looking to migrate from Google Groups to Microsoft Teams, including:

Seamless Migration Process: Cloudiway offers a seamless migration process, with an easy-to-use interface that enables organizations to migrate from Google Groups to Microsoft Teams with ease. The tool also offers advanced migration features, such as pre-migration analysis and scheduling, to ensure that the migration process is as smooth and efficient as possible.

Reduced Downtime: Cloudiway enables organizations to migrate data from Google Groups to Microsoft Teams with minimal downtime. This means that organizations can continue to work while the migration is taking place, without any interruptions or delays.

Increased Productivity: With Cloudiway, organizations can quickly and easily migrate data from Google Groups to Microsoft Teams, which can increase productivity and efficiency. This is because employees will have access to all their data in one centralized location, making it easier to collaborate and communicate.

Data Security: Cloudiway ensures that all data is migrated securely and safely, with minimal risk of data loss or corruption. The tool uses advanced encryption and security protocols to protect data during the migration process.

Cost-effective: Cloudiway offers a cost-effective solution for organizations looking to migrate from Google Groups to Microsoft Teams. The tool is affordable and can save organizations time and money compared to manual migration methods.

Scalability: Cloudiway is a scalable solution that organizations of all sizes can use. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, the tool can be customized to meet your specific migration needs.

8. How It Works

Using Google Vault to extract the Google Groups, we get an exact copy of all your Google Groups list with their content (conversations, attachments, etc.).

The platform extracts all the content and imports it into the mailbox of the Unified Group or Team, or the Shared Mailbox converted to emails.

9. What Is Migrated

Groups are recreated at the target as Shared Mailboxes, Unified Groups, or Teams.
Content is migrated as mails in the mailbox component of the Shared Mailboxes, Unified Groups, or Teams.

10. Prerequisites

10.1 Vault Prerequisites

It requires a Google migration account that is authorized to call the Google Vault APIs.

The migration account in the connector (custom or Cloudiway’s google service account) should have as a minimum Vault role and a valid license for Google Workspace.

In addition, the migration account needs to be a SuperAdmin.

You need to give Cloudiway permission to access your data through Google APIs. This will grant Cloudiway products access to the appropriate scopes.

For additional information, you can follow this article.

In the Google connector, you have the option to choose between the Cloudiway Google service account and the custom Google service account.

All the above prerequisites are mandatory in both scenarios.

If you are using a custom service account, you need to enable the Google Vault API, by following these steps.

As a Google feature, there is an option to enable or disable the Conversation History for a Group. Ensure that this specific option under Posting Policies is enabled (ON).

If this option is set to OFF, any new conversation will not be transferred to the vault and they will not be displayed in the conversations section. Any conversation that does not appear in the conversation section group will NOT be migrated. That rule will not change after a delta pass. The conversations will be migrated after a delta pass, only if they appear before the delta pass in the conversations section of the group.

Note: The user doesn’t have to disable the 2-step validation from the Google account.

10.2 Office 365 Prerequisites

Migration uses a mix of Graph APIs, CSOM, and EWS (Exchange Web services) calls. Therefore it requires configuring specific permissions to execute these calls.

An Azure Active Directory application needs to be installed on the Office 365 tenant. Administrator credentials are required for this setup, further instructions you can be read in this article.

We recommend creating an account dedicated to the migration, that can be deleted once the migration is completed.

It must be an Exchange administrator.
It must not be configured with multi-factored authentication (MFA) or SSO (ADFS).
The target account migration must be already added as a member of the shared mailbox and of the group (Unified or Teams) before the migration starts.
The user must have at least the Office 365 E5 license.

11. Migration Process

The migration is the process of the following steps consisting of

Creating the connectors for connecting to the source and the target
Create or import users
Optionally run an Audit to discover the volumetry.
Run the migration

The migration of Google Groups through Google Vault uses the Archives functionality from the Mail migration.

Under the Mail product, select the Archives tab to proceed with the Google Groups migration:

11.1 Connectors

To facilitate the Vault to Office 365 migration, the Cloudiway platform needs to be able to communicate with both your source and target domains. To do this, Cloudiway uses connectors. You must set up a connector for each source tenant and each target tenant.

11.1.1 Vault connector

11.1.2 Office 365 connector

11.2 Create, GetList, or Import Users

You can manually add the details of a Google Group to your list on the Cloudiway platform, you can retrieve (GetList), or you can upload larger volumes of users through a CSV file.

11.2.1 Create User(s)

Under the tab Manage, select Create User:

Select your source and target connectors, and fill in all the mandatory fields.

The Group Name and Group Email Address can be found in your Google Groups list.

As a source connector, you have to select your Vault connector, and as a target connector, you have to select your Office 365 connector.

Source:

Target:

Select Google Groups as Source Recipient Type:

Select the Target Recipient Type:

Click OK, to save the new user.

In case you need to change Target Recipient Type for more than one user you can select them and under the Manage tab, click on the Change Target Recipient option:

On the pop-up window, select the desired Target Recipient Type you want to assign to all selected groups:

11.2.2. GetList

Under the MIGRATION tab, click on the Get List option:

Select your source and target pool connector:

After selecting your source pool connector the Vault, a message will appear to inform you that the GetList action will be run for Google Groups:

You have to specify the Target Recipient Type, Unified Groups, Shared Mailboxes, or Microsoft Teams:

Then, specify:

The Matching Rules
- Mail Exact Match: the source email = the target email (bob.marley@sourcedomain.com > bob.marley@sourcedomain.com)
- Keep Email Prefix Same as Source: only the domain name changed (bob.marley@sourcedomain.com > bob.marley@targetdomain.com)
- FirstName.LastName (i.e. bob.marley@targetdomain.com)
- F.LastName (i.e. b.marley@targetdomain.com)
- FLastName (i.e. bmarley@targetdomain.com)
- LastNameF (i.e. marleyb@targetdomain.com)
The Target Domain

11.2.3 Upload Users through CSV file

If you have a CSV file of all your groups, you can upload the file to Cloudiway. Detailed steps can be found on this page:

If you perform more than one upload, any data already uploaded will not be uploaded. You will receive an error message, that the upload is not finished successfully.

If you wish to edit any data that’s been uploaded, click on the Group from the Group list to display the editable list of fields.

11.3 Audit

The audit is optional and purely informative. It consumes the Cloudiway license. You do not have to run it unless you wish to see how many files and folders you have in the source Google group.

To Audit a Google Group, from the Group List, select the Group that you want, and under the MIGRATION tab, click on the Audit option:

This feature returns the number of topics counted as emails:

11.4 Pre-process

The pre-processing tool creates the Team, the Shared Mailbox, or the Unified Group at the target if it doesn’t already exist.

What does the pre-processing tool do in detail?

At the target:

It creates Teams, Unified Groups, or Shared Mailboxes, depending on your target recipient type selection
It migrates membership and ownership.

To pre-process a Google Group, in Group List, select it and click on MIGRATION, Pre-Processing.

The group is now ready to be migrated.

11.5 Migration

If the Team, Unified Group, or Shared Mailbox does not already exist on the target tenant, you must run the group’s pre-processing (see step above).

Now that you have performed all the pre-migration steps, you’re ready to migrate. We recommend you first run a test migration on a single group to check that your configuration produces the expected outcome.

To start your migration, select the group(s) or batch you wish to migrate and click on the Start button from the MIGRATION menu. Your batch will be scheduled and will begin as soon as resources are available. By default, 100 migrations can be run concurrently.

12. Troubleshooting

Cloudiway provides an extensive knowledge base with many resources, including common error messages, video guides, and downloads.

Please visit the knowledge base here: https://help.cloudiway.com/

Support

Support tickets must be opened through the platform.

Once logged, enter your project and select Help, then support.

The chatbot will ask you a couple of questions and then open a support ticket.

Once you have received the initial mail, you can continue the support by mail.

More information regarding our support program is available here: https://cloudiway.com/support/

13. FAQ

How much costs a Google Group Migration license?

One Group migration license is required per source Google Group to migrate.

Please contact sales to get a complete quote.