GroupWise to Microsoft 365 Migration Guide

This is the complete onboarding task flow for migrating mailboxes from GroupWise (version 7.0 and later) to Microsoft 365. GroupWise may be running on Windows or Linux. 

There are some tools and resources that will make the migration easier. We suggest reading through the following information and linked guides before beginning your migration. 

First migration?

We’ve created a guide to scoping, planning, and managing the migration process for your use. If this is your first migration, we recommend reading this guide carefully.

MigrationWiz

MigrationWiz is a migration tool, not a syncing tool. If changes are made at the source after migration, they will not sync to the destination, nor will changes made at the destination sync to the source. We do not have “live” monitoring of changes (as with a sync agent) and we cannot handle scenarios such as conflict resolution without user interaction.

MigrationWiz supports the capability to share migration projects across a Workgroup. When the Project Sharing feature is turned on, all Agents besides those who are Inactive can view all migrations projects. 

We are not able to support migrations with two-factor or multifactor authentication. 

App passwords are not supported for the Microsoft 365 endpoint. 

The maximum file size for migration through MigrationWiz varies by migration type and environment, but may never exceed 60GB.

Which items are migrated?

If the destination is Exchange or Office 365:

  • Inbox
  • Folders
  • Email
  • Contacts
  • Calendars
  • Tasks

If the destination is not Exchange or Office 365:

  • Inbox
  • Folders
  • Email
Which items are not migrated?
  • Shared folders
  • Contact and Calendar items to G Suite destination(s)
  • Multi-user folders
  • Frequent contacts
  • Suggested contacts

Microsoft 365 questions and troubleshooting

For questions about Microsoft 365 migrations, visit our Microsoft 365 Mailbox Migrations FAQ.

Prepare the Source Environment

Enable the SOAP endpoint

Enable the SOAP endpoint on each Post Office Agent (POA).

  1. Start GroupWise ConsoleOne.
  2. Navigate to GroupWise Agent Settings.
  3. Checkmark the Enable SOAP option to enable SOAP access.
  4. If the Source environment has multiple POAs, it will be necessary to open a SOAP port (typically 7191) on each POA.

Generate the user list

This can be generated through your GroupWise ConsoleOne portal. GroupWise migrations require both the email address AND the username, e.g., email address = testuser001@mydomain.com AND username = testuser001.

Single POA:

  • If there is only one POA, you will only need to generate one user list and migrate all users from one MigrationWiz mailbox project.

If there are multiple POAs and they are not linked:

  • You will need to generate a user list for each POA.
  • You will then use these lists to add the users to each MigrationWiz mailbox project.
  • You will create multiple Source endpoints, one for each POA, and include the IP address of the POA as part of the GroupWise SOAP URL, under the MSPComplete section of this guide. It will follow this format: <http or https>://<IP address>:7191/soap

If there are multiple POAs and they are linked:

  • You will only need to generate one user list, which should include all users from all POAs.
  • You will then use this list to add the users to a single MigrationWiz mailbox project.
  • You will create only one Source endpoint and include the external IP address of the POA as part of the GroupWise SOAP URL, under the MSPComplete section of this guide. It will follow this format: <http or https>://<IP address>:7191/soap

Credentials:

  1. Create a Trusted Application Key. This is used to migrate from GroupWise using administrative credentials.
  2. Use the GroupWise graphical interface to register a Trusted Application key called "MigrationWiz".
  3. Ensure that the application name is set to "MigrationWiz."
  4. Make a note of the key value for the application key textbox. This will need to be entered under the Source endpoint in MSPComplete.
  5. For GroupWise 8 Support Pack 1 or later, use the graphical user interface tool to register trusted applications.
  6. For previous versions, use our command line tool to generate the Trusted Application Key.
    1. Go to the target GroupWise server.
    2. Log in as a GroupWise administrator.
    3. Verify the user has full access to the GroupWise domain folder.
    4. Extract zipped files to a local temporary folder.
    5. Run the EXE with the GroupWise database folder as an argument (ie., GenerateTrustedAppMigrationWizKey.exe C:\Novell\Databases).

Example:

  • C:\>GenerateTrustedAppMigrationWizKey.exe C:\Novell\Databases
  • MigrationWiz Trusted App Key Generator
  • Configuring: C:\Novell\Databases
  • Key Generated
  • Key: 865A15420BA50008B…007BCF0085003000​

If this doesn’t work on your environment:

The command line tool requires the NETWIN32.DLL, which is packed by Novel Netware client. If you get the following error: “The program can’t start because NETWIN32.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem” confirm that:

  1. The GroupWise client is installed on the computer.
  2. The Novell Netware client is installed on the computer.

If these are both installed:

    1. Go to a Windows machine.
    2. Log in as a GroupWise administrator.
    3. Mount a drive letter to the remote target GroupWise server (for example, net use X: \\GW-Server\c$ /u:Administrator).
    4. Follow the previously outlined steps using X:\Novell\Databases instead.

Prepare the Destination Environment

Set Up User Accounts

Set up user accounts on the destination Office 365 tenant and assign licenses. These can be created in several ways. (The following links are to external articles.)

Manually, one at a time.

By bulk import, via CSV file

By PowerShell script

Create an Administrator Account

Create an administrator account in Microsoft 365 to be used for migration or use the global admin account for the tenant. The administrator account must have either full access to the user mailboxes or be granted impersonation rights. We recommend using impersonation as it will help reduce the likelihood of the migration being throttled by Microsoft. For specific steps to set impersonation manually, follow the steps in Prepare the Source.

Test Administrator Access

Test that the administrator can access user mailboxes.
Test access to the tenantname.onmicrosoft.com addresses, not to the domainname.com addresses. Make sure that the tenantname.onmicrosoft.com account is attached to each mailbox in Microsoft 365. By default, it should be attached, but if not, it will need to be added as an alias to each account. This can be done through the Microsoft 365 admin portal or via PowerShell scripts. 

Modern Authentication Requirements

Exchange Online EWS Modern Authentication Requirements (click on this box to expand required steps)

The steps listed below apply to both the source and/or destination tenant when they are Exchange Online, in regards to Exchange Web Services (EWS) in mailbox, archive mailbox, and public folder projects. Use a Global Administrator for the configuration steps.

For setup steps that include images, see under Enabling Modern Authentication for EWS between MigrationWiz and your Exchange Online Tenant in the following KB: Authentication Methods for Microsoft 365 (All Products) Migrations

Important

Failure to perform the steps for your Microsoft 365 endpoints, can result in failed jobs with 401 errors like the following in your project: Http POST request to 'autodiscover-s.outlook.com' failed - 401 Unauthorized

The administrator account being used for the project needs to be excluded from any MFA/2FA policies or Conditional Access policies that can block access for the administrator account. This requirement does not apply to the items or users being migrated in the project.

Configuring Modern Authentication to work with MigrationWiz for mailbox, archive mailbox, and public folder projects in Exchange Online is now the default method after Microsoft discontinued support for Basic Authentication in Exchange Online after December 2022. The following Microsoft documentation outlines this change in more detail. Should you have additional questions on how this change may impact your tenant, please contact Microsoft to assist with providing that information: Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online

The Azure Security Defaults must also be disabled in the tenant. (This is often enabled by default for all new Exchange Online tenants and there is no workaround for this requirement). For steps on where to enable/disable the Azure Security Defaults, see Enabling security defaults in the following Microsoft documentation. To disable, set Enable Security defaults to No: Security defaults in Azure AD

Modern Authentication Steps
  • Log in to the Azure AD admin console with a Global Administrator login.
  • Select Azure Active Directory in the Azure Active Directory Admin Center.
  • Select App Registrations, which is found under Manage.
  • Select New Registration at the top of the screen.
  • Give the app a distinct name. You can change this later if necessary.
  • Select the Accounts in any organizational directory button.
  • Under Redirect Uri, select Public Client (mobile & desktop) and set it to urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob
  • Click Register.
  • Go back to App registrations.
  • Select the App you just created.
  • In the Overview, you will find a ClientId (aka Application) and Directory (Tenant) ID.
  • Copy both of these to another application, such as Notepad, for use later in this process.
  • Under the Manage menu, select Authentication.
  • Set the option Allow public client flows to Yes
  • Click Save.
  • From the Manage menu, select API permissions.
  • If API permission named User.Read under Microsoft Graph is already present, this can be removed. The Microsoft Graph API is not applicable to this project type and is not used.
  • Select Add a Permission.
  • Select APIs my organization uses.

  • Scroll down and select Office 365 Exchange Online.

  • Then select Delegated Permissions.

  • Select EWS.

  • Check the box under EWS for EWS.AccessAsUser.All.
  • Click Add permissions. This permission only allows the OAuth application (MigrationWiz) to be associated with EWS.

    Important

    This does not grant access to all mailbox data.
  • Click Grant admin consent.
  • Click Yes to confirm the settings.
  • In MigrationWiz, select the project that needs to be configured for Modern Authentication.
  • Click the Edit Project menu.
  • Select Advanced Options.
  • Under Support Options enter the ClientID and TenantID information you saved earlier in the following format:
    • If enabling Modern Authentication for the Source:
      • ModernAuthClientIdExport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
      • ModernAuthTenantIdExport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
    • If enabling Modern Authentication for the Destination:
      • ModernAuthClientIdImport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
      • ModernAuthTenantIdImport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx 
        • Enter the specific ClientID and TenantID for your tenant in place of the xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.
        • These options can be entered for either the Source or the Destination, or both, depending on the settings on the tenants.
        • These options need to be configured for each MigrationWiz project that needs to have Modern Authentication enabled.

  • Run a Verify Credentials to confirm that MigrationWiz can connect using Modern Authentication. 
  • Click on the item that was verified. There will be a message in the MigrationWiz Migration Information page that Modern Authentication is being used. This message will show in the “Migration Errors” box; however, it is not an error. This is just a message confirming that Modern Authentication is now active and being used for the connection.

Prepare the tenant to send & receive large items

We do not impose any limit on item/attachment sizes. However, it is possible for large items/attachments to fail to migrate because of external factors.  There are two considerations:​

  1. What is the maximum attachment size allowed by the Destination system? 
  • Most email systems impose size limits. For example, if the Destination system has a 30MB limit, any item/attachment larger than 30MB will fail to migrate.
  • What is the connection timeout for the Source and Destination system? 
    • ​​For security reasons, most email systems close opened connections after a predetermined amount of time. For example, if the Destination system only has 512Kbps of network bandwidth and closes connections after 30 seconds, we may be unable to transfer large items/attachments before the connection is closed.

    MigrationWiz will automatically make multiple attempts to migrate large items. Upon completion of a migration, you may resubmit it in error retry mode to try to migrate failed items. This is always free of charge.

    When migrating from or to Office 365 use the steps provided here to increase the Max Send and Max Recieve quotas, Change message size limits in Office 365.

    MSPComplete Steps

    Create Customer

    1. Click the Add button in the top navigation bar.
    2. Click the Add Customer button on the All Customers page.
    3. In the left navigation pane, select the appropriate workgroup and then click All Customers.
    4. Click Add Customer.
    5. Enter the new customer’s information in the Add Customer form. Primary Email Domain and Company Name are required. The rest are optional.
    6. Click Save.
    7. Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each customer you want to add. 

    Purchase licenses

    We recommend that you purchase the User Migration Bundle license for this migration scenario. User Migration Bundle licenses allow multiple types of migrations to be performed with a single license. They also allow DeploymentPro to be used to configure Outlook email profiles. For questions on licensing, visit MigrationWiz Licenses

    To purchase licenses:

    1. Sign in to your BitTitan account. 
    2. In the top navigation bar, click Purchase.
    3. Click the Select button and choose User Migration Bundle licenses.
    4. Enter the number of licenses you want to purchase. Click Buy Now.
    5. Enter a Billing address if applicable.
    6. Click Next.
    7. Review the Order Summary and enter a payment method.
    8. Click Place Your Order.

    If you have more questions about licensing, including redeeming coupons, or changing categories, see MigrationWiz - Licenses.

    MigrationWiz Steps

    Create a Mailbox Migration project

    If there are multiple Post Office Agents (POAs) that are not linked, you will create multiple Mailbox Migration Projects and match the Source endpoint to the project that corresponds to the users on the POA.

    1. Click the Go to My Projects button.
    2. Click the Create Project button.
    3. Click on the type of project that you wish to create. For this migration:
    • Mailbox: Mailbox projects are used to migrate the contents of the primary user mailbox from the previous environment to the new environment. Most mailbox migrations can migrate email, calendars, and contacts.

    For mailbox migrations, use administrative credentials to access mailboxes. In most migration scenarios, the admin account needs to have full access rights to the Source mailboxes. 

    1. Click Next Step.
    2. Enter a Project name and select a Customer.
    3. Click Next Step.

    Endpoints

    Endpoints are now created through MigrationWiz, rather than through MSPComplete. The steps for this section outline how to create the endpoints in MigrationWiz.

    If you are selecting an existing endpoint, keep in mind that only ten endpoints will show in the drop-down. If you have more than ten, you may need to search. Endpoint search is case and character-specific. For example, Cust0mer will not show up if the search is customer. We recommend keeping a list of endpoints you have created, along with any unique spellings or capitalization you may have used.

    1. Select a source endpoint or create a new endpoint. To create a new source endpoint:
      1. Click New.
      2. Name endpoint.
      3. Select type GroupWise 7+.
      4. Enter the GroupWise SOAP URL.
      5. Click the Provide Credentials radio button and enter the Trusted Key for the Trusted Application Key that was set up under the "Prepare the Source Environment" section of this guide.
      6. Click Add.
    2. Click Next Step.
    3. If multiple Post Office Agents (POAs) are not linked, create separate Source endpoints for each POA.
    4. Select an existing destination endpoint or create a new destination endpoint. To create a new destination endpoint, perform the next steps:
      1. Click New.
      2. Name endpoint.
      3. Select type Office 365.
      4. Fill in the required fields.
      5. Click Add.
    5. Click Next Step.
    6. Click Save and Go to Summary.

    Add Users

    Add the user accounts that will be migrated to the project. This may be done in several ways, depending on the size of the project. Steps for each option are in the accordion below, simply click to show the option you select and follow the guidance there.

    GroupWise migrations require both the email address AND the username, e.g., email address = testuser001@mydomain.com AND username = testuser001.

    Small Migrations

    For small migrations, it is easy to add users one-at-a-time using Quick Add. The steps for this are below. 

    Larger Migrations

    For larger migrations, we recommend either using the Autodiscover (if supported) or Bulk Add option.

    Quick Add
    This option allows you to add items one at a time. To do so, you only have to provide an email address if you entered administrative credentials when setting up the project. If you did not, enter the following user information:
    • An email address
    • Login name
    • Password
    • Mailbox Status
    Bulk Add

    Bulk Add uses a CSV containing the source and destination email addresses for the users to add the users to the project. If migrating only a specific group from a tenant, we recommend using the Bulk Add option.

    MigrationWiz allows you to bulk import mailboxes into the system.

    To import one or more mailboxes:

    1. Sign in to your MigrationWiz account.
    2. Select the Project for which you want to perform the bulk import.
    3. Click on Add .
    4. Click on Bulk Add .
    5. Follow the instructions on the page.
    Autodiscover

    ​The Autodiscover process within MigrationWiz can be used to discover items from the Source environment so that they can be imported into your projects.

    There are a few requirements in order for this to work:

    • The Source has to be Exchange 2007 or later.
    • The endpoint on the Source needs to use admin credentials.
    • For mailbox migration projects, the admin account that is specified within the Source endpoint needs to have a mailbox associated with it.
    • The admin mailbox must be listed in the public Global Address List (GAL).

    One additional item to note here is that there is no way to restrict the IP addresses that the connection will come from.  This means that the steps outlined in our IP Lockdown guide will not apply here.  If your environment requires that any IP addresses be whitelisted, it is recommended that items be added to your project using one of the other available options.

    Autodiscover of items will not work while using Modern Authentication

    Autodiscovery exposes the following items:

    • For mailbox migration, autodiscovery will list all mailboxes at the Source.

    Steps to Run Autodiscover

    1. Navigate to the project you want to import users into.

    2. Ensure that you have created an endpoint for the source project.

    3. Once in the project, on the top navigation bar, click on the Add drop-down, then select Autodiscover Items. This will begin the Autodiscover process.

    4. Once discovered, click on the Import button, to import the items into your MigrationWiz project.

    Add Advanced Options

    Go to Support Options and add:

    • Set to use impersonation at Destination. Check the Use impersonation at Destination box. 
    • Folder mapping: FolderMapping=”^Cabinet->Inbox”. This will map folders under the cabinet subfolder on GroupWise, to the Inbox on the Destination.
    • Set Maximum concurrent migrations. We recommend setting this to a very low value, such as 10, to ensure that server utilization does not go above 80%. If the Source server has enough server resources, set this parameter based on the bandwidth guideline of three (3) mailboxes per 1Mbps of bandwidth. Therefore, for example, if there is a 10Mbps connection, we recommend setting the maximum concurrent migrations parameter to be 30. If the Source server has very few available server resources (e.g., it is running low on memory or it has very high CPU utilization), we recommend setting this value to a lower number to avoid overwhelming the Source server with requests.

    Run Verify Credentials

    1. Open the Project containing items you wish to validate​.
    2. Select the items you wish to validate.
    3. Click on the Start button in your dashboard.
    4. Select Verify Credentials from the drop-down list.

    Once complete, the results of the verification will be shown in the Status section.​ 

    Notify Users

    Notify users that a migration is occurring. Send email to all users telling them the time and date of the migration.

    Run Migration

    Pre-Stage pass

    1. Select the users you wish to migrate.
    2. Click the Start button from the top.
    3. Select Pre-Stage Migration.
    4. Under the Migration Scheduling section, from the drop-down list, select 90 days ago.
    5. Click Start Migration.

    MX Record Cutover

    Change over MX records on the DNS provider's portal. Also, include the AutoDiscover (CName) setting.

    Notify users

    Send an email to end users to let them know what to expect for their Outlook profile reconfiguration. Samples and screenshots can be found in our DeploymentPro documentation.

    Full (Delta) pass

    1. Select the users.
    2. Click the Start button from the top.
    3. Select Full Migration.
    4. Click Start Migration.

    Run Retry Errors

    Look through the user list and click any red "failed migration" errors. Review the information and act accordingly.

    If problems persist, contact Support.

    Request Statistics

    Click the pie chart icon in the MigrationWiz dashboard to receive an email containing all the project migration statistics.

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