Windows 11 - Migration Pilot

Overview and Use Case

The Windows 11 - Migration Pilot pack enables IT teams to plan and carry out a successful pilot of Windows 11 before committing to a production migration. The solution reports on all aspects of the pilot systems from Digital Experience, reliability, performance and user sentiment.

By judging and reporting on the success at all phases of the pilot process, it provides valuable insight into how successful both the pilot has been and also the experience of Windows 11 itself.

Pre-Requisites

Version 6.30 Maintenance Release 8 (October 2021) / Nexthink Experience 2021.9 and above is required. Note this is to include support for Windows 11 and this version of the on-premise version of Nexthink must be present or there may be difficulty importing the pack.

Changelog

V2.2.0.0 - Changed metrics to monitor all devices rather than active devices to give a more accurate longer-term view of migration. Please note that historical data loss will occur if importing this version of the pack into a system with the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot pack already installed. Only import if this is acceptable.

V2.0.0.1 - Modified RA Campaign name to match the name of the pack and made two minor changes to wording in the sentiment campaign.

V2.0.0.0 - Added remote action Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11 to provide an end to end Windows 11 deployment solution for SCCM environments

V1.0.0.0 - Initial Release

How the pack works

There are stringent requirements for Windows 11 from Microsoft (Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements | Microsoft) and, whilst not essential, it is strongly recommended that the Windows 11 - Readiness pack is installed prior to this pack in order to test the readiness of your landscape of devices. This will help determine whether the hardware or the software installed allows the current production Windows devices to be migrated to Windows 11, whether they will need to be upgraded or whether they are blocked and will need replacing. Transformation teams will also be able to leverage the employees' Digital Experience Score scores and their use of business-critical applications to determine the most appropriate candidates for the pilot group.

The Windows 11 - Migration Pilot pack uses several campaigns to prepare and receive feedback from the identified pilot users and to measure sentiment once the migration has been completed. This will allow for the IT teams to identify and rectify issues reported as well as improve the migration process itself. Once these points have been addressed with the assistance of the pilot users, the IT team will be able to move forward with the main migration of all devices to Windows 11 with confidence.

A remote action called Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11 in conjunction with the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Invoke-SCCMUpgradeW11-Campaign is used where targetted users are asked whether they are ready to proceed with the upgrade to Windows 11. They have an option of refusing the upgrade or selecting to defer 10 or 60 minutes or six hours.

Pack Structure

The pack comprises four campaigns, three categories, an investigation, a remote action and metrics related to the dashboards.

The campaigns are used to prepare the pilot candidates for the migration to Windows 11 and to provide information and gather feedback and sentiment regarding the user's current Windows environment and the new Windows 11 environment they are migrated to.

The categories are used to list your pilot candidates and to give you the ability to exclude devices such as servers or business-critical devices that are not to be part of the migration but belong to a pilot user.

An investigation is also provided so that when a pilot user is migrated, their first logon to a Windows 11 device will prompt a campaign welcoming them to the new operating system and offering some tips on how to use the new system.

The remote action is used to a ‘no-touch’ solution where the employee can trigger the upgrade to Windows 11 at a more convenient time.

Remote action

The remote action, Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11, is used to provide a ‘no-touch’ solution where the employee can trigger the upgrade to Windows 11 at a more convenient time. A campaign targets employees who are asked whether they are ready to proceed with the upgrade to Windows 11. and they have the option of refusing the upgrade or selecting to defer for 10 minutes, 60 minutes or six hours. The times cannot be changed. When the employee selects the preferred time, a scheduled task is created on the employee's device with the deferred time selected. Once the time has elapsed, the scheduled task is triggered and a script is run invoking the SCCM task to install Windows 11.

Nexthink Experience customers can view the details of all remote actions via the Engage portal.

V6 customers can access the remote action results via the Finder.

The remote action has to be triggered manually and therefore needs to have the options ‘Allow manual triggering of the remote on these devices’ and ‘The remote action can be triggered on multiple devices at the same time’ ticked.

The remote action Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11 requires that the UID of the campaign Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Invoke-SCCMUpgradeW11-Campaign and the SCCM task sequence ID be added to the input parameters of the remote action.

To achieve this:

Find the remote action Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11, right-click and select edit.

Find and expand the ‘Parameters’ section

Find the campaign Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Invoke-SCCMUpgradeW11-Campaign, right-click and select Export → Campaign UID to clipboard

Return back to the remote action and paste the UID into the field ‘ENTER-CAMPAIGNID-HERE’ within the parameters:

Finally, enter the SCCM task id (refer to your SCCM administrator for this information) into the field ‘ENTER-TASKID-HERE’ and click Save when done.

The remote action can be invoked by either creating an investigation and adding to remote action or running the investigation and manually selecting the Pilot candidates devices and invoking the remote action.

To add the investigation to the remote action, select and edit as described above and tick the ‘Automatically run the remote action’ tick box and then drag and drop the investigation into the area indicated:

To manually select the devices, run the investigation and select the devices belonging to the Pilot users that are going to be upgraded by way of an investigation, right-click and select Remote actions → Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11

This will trigger the campaign where the pilot user selects the time to defer the upgrade for or to reject the upgrade:

Campaigns

Campaigns are used to ask potential pilot candidates whether they wish to be part of the pilot migration group and if so, to prepare them for the migration by requesting and confirming that tasks essential to keeping user data safe are carried out. The Windows 11 - Readiness pack will assist in suggesting pilot candidates but it is important to have the commitment from those selected so as to provide accurate and honest feedback

They are also used to gather sentiment regarding the new environment and to assist with using Windows 11 by offering tips and advice.

Nexthink Experience customers can view the details of all campaigns via the Engage portal.

V6 customers can access the campaign results via the Finder.

The campaigns are:

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Do you want to be a pilot candidate?

This campaign should be sent to the users that the IT department has determined would make excellent pilot candidates. The potential candidates that answer ‘I would like more information' should be visited by the IT support team to find out their concerns and help alleviate them so that they accept being a pilot candidate.

The contents of the campaign are shown below:

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Get ready

This campaign is sent to the pilot candidates at a time determined by the IT department asking the users to prepare for their migration to Windows 11. This is to be sent to the candidates that responded yes to the “Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Do you want to be a pilot candidate?” campaign. This campaign should be sent as close as possible to when the migration will start.

The campaign takes the candidate through the process of backing up their files, Outlook PST(s) and exporting their internet browser favourites. The list is not exhaustive. Based on company requirements and processes, these questions should be adapted or added to as required.

Within the questions, there is a part where you enter a link to your procedure that details the process required to back up the required files.

For example, in Step 1 within the screenshot below, the entry reads ‘Step 1: [Backup files and folders](ENTER_LINK_TO_PROCEDURE_HERE). Proceed to step 2 when done'. Replace ENTER_LINK_TO_PROCEDURE_HERE (do not delete the surrounding brackets) with the link to your procedure. The text displayed to the candidate will be Step 1: Backup files and folders. Proceed to step 2 when done

IMPORTANT: whilst the employees will have carried out the backups suggested within the campaign, it is vital that the IT team carry out a final differential backup to make sure any changes since the campaign was answered, the user backups carried out and the migration started have been captured.

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Welcome to Windows 11

An investigation detects when a pilot user first logs on to a Windows 11 device and they will receive this campaign welcoming them to the new operating system and offering some tips on how to use the new system.

Two examples have been provided within the campaign but further ‘tips’ is recommended to be added to the list to further assist and enrich the new operating system.

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - users post-migration sentiment

This campaign is sent to the pilot candidates after a period of time determined by the IT department asking them how they feel the migration went and their feelings on the new operating system.

Issues with the migration should be investigated as a matter of urgency so that the same problems can be rectified before the main migration is started and is therefore not experienced on a company scale.

Sentiment on the new operating system can be used to discover where concerns lay with the experience of the device since it was migrated to Windows 11. Appropriate action can then be considered to rectify the discovered issues (such as a memory upgrade should the user sentiment indicate that the experience is Windows is running more slowly and the associated technical data (see later in this document) indicates more memory is needed).

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Invoke-SCCMUpgradeW11-Campaign

This campaign is sent to the Pilot candidates who are to receive the Windows 11 upgrade. The campaign must be published in order to be able to work successfully with the Invoke SCCM Upgrade to Windows 11 remote action. To publish, right-click the campaign and select ‘Publish’.

Click ‘Yes’ to the confirmation message:

The campaign is now shown in bold:

Apart from some changes to the text in the Header and Footer, no other changes should be made to the campaign as this could stop it from working.

Categories

Categories are used to determine who the pilot candidates are and to have the ability to exclude devices from the migration such as servers or business-critical devices that are not to be part of the migration but belong to a pilot user.

The categories are:

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Candidates

This category lists the employees that have been determined as being suitable candidates either by use of the Windows 11 Readiness pack or by company internal means.

The category can be populated by either of the two methods described below:

Method 1

• Find the required pilot candidates via an investigation based on the criteria determined (ie, by department, location etc)

• From the list retrieved from the investigation, right-click on the required employee name and select ‘Edit’

• the following dialogue is displayed:

• Click on the drop-down box under ‘Keyword’ and select ‘Pilot candidate’ (please note that the wording may be truncated:

• This will add a tick in the box next to Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Candidates. Click ‘Apply’ to confirm and close the dialogue box. A message will be displayed saying the user was successfully edited

Method 2

• Open the category by double-clicking on it

• Enter the name of the employee in the last field:

IE

• Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Excluded devices

This category contains the devices that you wish to exclude from the readiness check. Servers have already been added, but if a business-critical device, for example, a workstation running a critical application, needs to be excluded from the readiness check, it should be added to this list.

• Click on ‘Click here to add a new condition’ to add a device to exclude from the migration assessment. As an example, a device called LON10 has been added to the list. Click save when done

• Virtualization type

As virtual devices are not part of the scope for the migration pack due to the vastly different configurations on customer premises, the category Virtualization type which is part of the Digital Experience Score pack is utilized. Within the category, there is the ‘Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)’ keyword where the Auto-tagging conditions must be edited to match your environment.

Dashboards

Summary

The Summary dashboard gives you an overview of the migration progress of your pilot candidates to Windows 11.

• Digital Experience Score

  • The Digital Experience Score compares the scores of your production environment against your migrated pilot devices. If the production score is low, investigations should be carried out to avoid migrating existing issues from the current Windows environment to Windows 11. If the score of the migrated pilot devices is low, this could indicate issues such as hardware or software compatibility problems that should be investigated again.

• Digital Experience Score history

  • A history of the score during the migration.

Windows 11 migration summary

• Pilot migration progress

  • The total amount of devices that are to be migrated, that have been migrated and the percentage of the devices migrated within the selected time frame

• Pilot migration progress history

  • The history of the devices to migrate

• Pilot migration satisfaction

  • Unhappy with migration process

    • The count of employees that selected 'Very dissatisfied’ or ’Somewhat dissatisfied' to the question 'How satisfied were you with your migration to Windows 11?’ in the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - users post-migration sentiment campaign. These users should be consulted as a priority in order to discover what issues occurred during the migration process.

  • Unhappy with Windows 11

    • The count of employees that selected 'Very dissatisfied’ or ’Somewhat dissatisfied' to the question 'How happy are you with your Windows 11 environment?’ in the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - users post-migration sentiment campaign. These users should be consulted as a priority in order to discover which aspects of Windows 11 are causing concern so that remediation plans can be put in place such as training on the new operating system.

• Pilot migration satisfaction history

  • This widget shows the history of the migration and environment satisfaction. IT should target that these trends should go downwards as the migration technique is improved and users are proactively assisted in the learning of Windows 11.

Pilot candidates migration

The Pilot candidates migration dashboard gives you a more detailed view of the migration of your pilot candidates to Windows 11.

Summary

• Pilot migration progress

  • The total amount of devices that are to be migrated, that have been migrated and the percentage of the devices migrated on the selected time frame

• Pilot migration progress history

  • The history of the devices to migrate and have been migrated.

Pilot candidates

• Pilot candidates by hierarchy

  • This widget shows how many employees within each location responded to the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Do you want to be a pilot candidate? campaign as being willing to be pilot candidates. This will help in making sure you have a good spread of pilot candidates and are not all located in one or two locations.

• Pilot candidates by department

  • This widget shows how many pilot candidates within each department responded to the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Do you want to be a pilot candidate? campaign as being willing to be pilot candidates. This will help make sure you have a good spread of pilot candidates that are not all located in one or two departments.

• Pilot devices by region

  • This widget shows you the devices belonging to the pilot candidates within each region and their progress so far. This will help make sure you have a good spread of pilot candidates that are not all located in one or two locations.

• Pilot candidate readiness

  • This widget shows the pilot candidates who responded positively to all the questions raised within the Windows 11 - Migration Pilot - Get ready campaign. Follow up on candidates who have said that they are not ready as any issues must be resolved before migration.

Pilot candidates migration device stability

The Pilot candidates migration device stability dashboard gives an overall view of the stability and performance of your devices pre and post-migration.

Digital Experience Score

• Digital Experience Score

  • The Digital Experience Score pre and post-migration. If either score is considerably low then investigations should be carried out. This is to avoid migrating existing issues from the current environment to Windows 11 if the pre-migration score is low and to help find issues such as any hardware or software compatibility problems should the post-migration score be considerably lower.

• Digital Experience Score history

  • A history of the Digital Experience Score to help in finding any trends during the migration

• Device performance

  • The device performance score is a sub-score of the Digital Experience Score.

• Device performance history

  • The history of the device performance score is a sub-score of the Digital Experience Score.

• Windows 10/7 breakdown and Windows 11 breakdown

  • These bar charts show key scores of the device stability and performance pre and post-migration. If one is significantly lower or Windows 11 is lower than Windows 10, IT should investigate this.

    The Digital Experience Score of each component of the device pre-migration. The items monitored are:

    • Application crashes

    • Application freezes

    • Hard resets

    • Blue screens

    • Memory usage

    • CPU usage

• Application stability

  • The stability of applications on the devices pre and post-migration. High ratios of crashes, freezes, excessive memory usage or high CPU usage on the pre-migration devices should be investigated before the migration starts to avoid migrating existing issues from the current environment to Windows 11. Increased crashes post-migration should be investigated and rectified before moving on to the main migration to prevent company-wide problems. The items monitored are:

    • Application freezes

    • Application crashes

    • Applications with a high CPU ratio

    • Applications with high memory usage