OneDrive Migration

Overview

OneDrive is Microsoft's Cloud-based file storage solution. Offering large amounts of storage securely, it is popular and growing amongst businesses of all sizes. Nexthink's OneDrive Solution Packs cover all aspects of a OneDrive deployment, from Migration to Production and on into the Sustain. The Migration pack concerns the transformation of a traditional home folder corporate setup to one that uses OneDrive for Home Folder Storage.

This Library Pack does not perform the migration execution, as there are multiple ways in which an organization will move files into OneDrive, it's aim is to enable smooth management of this process. However, the actual technical file transfer into OneDrive may take place. The idea behind the pack is that users will be split into Waves. These waves will then be migrated to OneDrive sequentially.

Configuration

There are several important key concepts in this Library Pack to be understood and configured.

Legacy Home Folder location

The pack uses the idea that the Personal folders to be moved to OneDrive must exist somewhere on the corporate landscape. This can be anywhere from the local device hard drive, to a server-based UNC Share. As part of the Pre-Migration confirmation that an Employee is ready to be migrated, the Library Pack will need to be configured with the location of the share that is used for an Employee to reach their personal files. This can also be expressed as environment variables, for example "\\Server1\Home\%Username%" or even "%HomeDrive%%HomePath%” which enables the pack to work for multiple users with a single configuration.

Pre-Migration Pre-Requisites

The Library Pack will perform a number of checks on both the technical data of the user's home directory, finding any files which cannot be migrated to OneDrive as well as Sentiment based checks using Campaigns within the pack, which will highlight users who are requesting more help.

Home Directory Servers

In the event that the company uses traditional file servers to host the existing Home Folders for users, then these should be populated as part of the category Home Folder Servers and the pack will then highlight the file access traffic going to and from these servers from the user's devices. This is important in the planning of your OneDrive migration. You must make sure that you understand how much traffic is being used for the existing home drive solution so that you can then plan for this traffic to become internet facing traffic when moving to OneDrive.

OneDrive Deployment Wave

The category 'OneDrive Deployment Wave' should be used to move individuals into different batches for migration. Ideally, several batches can exist moving in a train-like fashion, with batches executing as time allows during the migration. The pack comes with a dashboard for one wave, but more can be created as required along with the prerequisite metrics for the new wave(s).

The difference between not being migrated and being migrated is handled via Categories in this Library Pack. Initially, all Employees should be given the category "Unassigned to Wave" meaning they still need to be assigned. Employees should be assigned to either being Excluded or one of the Migration waves as part of the setup. During migrations, once a user has been either moved to OneDrive or failed to move, their category should be set to either "Migrated" or "Failed" depending on the outcome. This is then reflected in the dashboards of the pack.

Remote Action Configuration

There are two remote actions that are included in this Library Pack. Both remote actions are used by several metrics to collect information relevant to the migration process. Information such as file sizes, number of directories, and sub-directories on a local device hard drive or a server-based UNC. One of the remote actions also checks for invalid file paths and invalid file name syntax. For these remote actions to function, they need to be manually provided a path to the local or UNC drive. This is done by going into the finder, finding the remote actions, and editing the InputPath parameters as desired. Listed below are remote actions that must be downloaded and installed in your finder for this Library Pack to work correctly:

Get User Folder Size

The 'Get User Folder Size' remote action is included in the Windows Information Library Pack.

Test OneDrive Files Path and Syntax

The 'Test OneDrive Files Path and Syntax' remote action is included in the OneDrive Library Pack

Metrics configuration

The metrics included in this Library Pack were built with the assumption that they will be customized to fit the digital environment in which they will operate. Generally, a fair amount of them makes use of the two aforementioned remote actions, especially the Sentiment metrics. Most of them have extensive interaction with the OneDrive Migration Sentiment, OneDrive Deployment Wave, and Home Folder Sizes categories included by default in this Library Pack.

Engage Campaigns

There are three Campaigns of importance: Training, Pre-Migration, and Post-Migration in the pack. These campaigns are configured to manually target users by default but can be changed to make use of the utility of investigations or remote actions.

Training

This Campaign can be targeted at any users who require training either before or after migration, ideally this should be all Employees. The Campaign should be customized to your Organizations needs and requirements and then delivered. As part of this Campaign, the Employee is also asked whether they require more training and if they respond positively this is visible in the Migration dashboards.

Pre-Migration

This Campaign looks at the overall satisfaction with the existing Home Folder solution, whatever it may be. It is important to take this Sentiment before migration to OneDrive so that post-migration, the same Campaign can be run, and it can be determined whether the Employee views OneDrive as an improvement. If they don't then this should be discussed and analyzed within the company, as a migration to a new service like OneDrive should be an enhancement not a detriment to the user. Users who have been migrated should be put into the category of 'OneDrive Migration Sentiment' by attaching the 'Post-Migration Sentiment' tag to them.

Post-Migration

Similar to the Pre-Migration Campaign, this Campaign's purpose is to determine how satisfied the Employee is with their new OneDrive solution. It should be taken following successful migration. This would then allow for administrators to know who views the new solution as an enhancement and who views it as a detriment. Users who have been migrated should be put into the category of 'OneDrive Migration Sentiment' by attaching the 'Post-Migration Sentiment' tag to them.