Public Folder Migration Guide From On-Premises Exchange 2007+ to Office 365 > 20GB

​Introduction

This is the complete onboarding task flow for migrating public folders from on-premises Exchange 2007 or later, to public folders on Microsoft Office 365.

This guide should be followed if the total size of the public folders at the source is more than 20GB.

This guide presumes that hybrid coexistence has not been set up. If working in a hybrid environment, refer to Public Folder Migration Guide From On-Premises Exchange 2007+ to Office 365 > 20GB Hybrid mode.

Complete each step in the order listed. If additional instructions are required, a link to a corresponding Knowledge Base article is provided. 

To see what items are included in the migration, see What items are migrated with MigrationWiz? and What items are not migrated with MigrationWiz?

MigrationWiz is a migration solution (not a synchronization solution) and will NOT propagate updates, deletes, or moves of the items previously migrated in the first migration pass because 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. For more information, visit Project Sharing in MigrationWiz.

Prepare Source Environment

• Set elevated 'Organization Management' administrator role to the migrating administrator account (this grants permission to all necessary read-only fields). See How do I assign the elevated admin role 'Organization Management' to the account that is performing a Public Folder migration?
• Ensure that the migrating administrator account has permission to access all public folders (owner access rights need to be permitted to the account being used for migration). See How do I ensure the admin account being used for Public Folder migration has permissions on all Public Folders?
• Split up large public folders. If any public folders contain more than 20,000 items (if Source = Exchange 2007), or 100,000 items (if Source = Exchange 2010 or later), these should be split into multiple Public Folders. This will speed up your migration. See How do I find the size of Source Public Folders?

Prepare Destination Environment

• Set up the Office 365 tenant.
• Add users and assign Office 365 licenses (if permissions are being migrated, this is required).
• Create a Public Folder mailbox, and assign root permissions to this Public Folder mailbox to the admin account being used for migration. See How do I create the Public Folder mailbox and database on Office 365? 
• Allocate Public Folders from the Source to their corresponding Public Folder mailboxes on Office 365 so that each mailbox on the Destination remains below 20GB.
  Important: If you have more than 1,000 folders or any folders larger than 20GB, contact BitTitan Support to help you plan and evaluate your project. In the subject of your email, reference "Public Folder Split" and "Folder Mapping". Click here to contact BitTitan Support. This is important because public folders that are larger than 20GB can trigger automatic splitting of the Public Folder mailboxes on Office 365, which may cause the migration to fail. This step can take several days to complete, so allow time for this in your project plan.

MSPComplete Steps

• Create customer. See View, Add, and Edit Your Customers
• Create the Source and Destination Endpoints (select Exchange Server Public Folder for the Source Endpoint, and Office 365 Public Folders for the Destination Endpoint). See View, Add, and Edit Customer Endpoints
• Launch MigrationWiz (select All Products/MigrationWiz).

MigrationWiz Steps

• Set up Project. Read the How do I create a new migration project? article for more information.
• Add Public Folders. To understand how pricing works, refer to What is the difference between the root Public Folder and top-level Public Folders?.
  Options:
• Select Add/Quick Add and enter a forward slash ( / ) within the field labeled Root Folder Path. See How do I select to migrate all my Public Folders from the root level down?
• Select Add/Quick Add and enter each folder you wish to migrate individually.
  Note: Each top-level folder will consume at least one Public Folder license. See How do I use AutoDiscover to import my Public Folders into my project?
• Run Verify Credentials. See How do I verify credentials?
• If the Source Public Folders have more than 1000 folders below the top-level folder, work with BitTitan Support so that the migration can be split up, based on migration points after every 1000 folders. See How do I split migrations based on child Public Folder count?
  Note: Once the tool is complete, you must run the migration from the new project, and can then delete the original project.
• Purchase Public Folder licenses. See How do I purchase licenses?
• To obtain an estimate of the number of Public Folder migration licenses required for your migration project, follow the directions in How do I estimate the number of Public Folder migration licenses required?.
• Set Project Advanced Options. See What project Advanced Options are available?
• Set the value for Migrate Permissions For to New folder and existing folders. This is required because Public Folder mapping scripts have been created. See How do I migrate Public Folder permissions?
• Set value for Licensing/Maximum licenses to consume per item per pass licensing count. Default = 1. This allows up to 10GB to be migrated. Example: If migrating all Public Folders, using the forward slash ( / ), and the total data size = 78GB, then increase this value to 8 (otherwise the migration will pause at 10GB). If using AutoDiscover, and the largest top-level folder = 37GB, increase this value to 4. See How do I enable consumption of multiple licenses for a single item? and  What is the difference between the root Public Folder and top-level Public Folders?
• Add RemoveFilterBasedOnFolderType=1 under Support/Support options. This flag is required if Public Folders contain items other than mail, such as calendar and contact items. See How do I migrate a Public Folder with multiple item types?
• Set Preferred BitTitan Data Center. For fastest migration speeds, select the Data Center that is closest to your Office 365 Destination tenant. See How do I specify the data center to use for my migration?
• First Pass MigrationWiz Steps:
  • Add: MaintainWatermarkCompletionState=1
  • Set date to migrate items older than six (6) months.
  • Set first pass Project Advanced Options.  See Should I follow a Pre-Stage or Big Bang strategy when migrating Public Folders?
• Perform Full Migration pass (checkmark the box next to Root Path, select Start button/select Full Migration from the drop-down list/click the Start Migration button).
• Second/Final Pass MigrationWiz Steps:
  • Remove: MaintainWatermarkCompletionState=1
  • Add: SkipImportFolderWhenPublicFolderExists=1
  • Set the date to migrate items newer than six (6) months.
  • Set second pass Project Advanced Options. See Should I follow a Pre-Stage or Big Bang strategy when migrating Public Folders?
• Perform Full Migration pass (put a checkmark in the box next to Root Path, select the Start button > select Full Migration from the drop-down list > click the Start Migration button).
• Perform a final Full Migration pass using the Advanced Option: AllowAllMailboxTypesForPFPermissions=1 in order to migrate all Security Group Permissions. If you do not run the second pass, none of the Security Group Permissions will migrate.
  Note: If you have multiple email addresses assigned to the Public Folder on the Source and want to migrate them to the Destination, use the instructions in this article: Migrating mail-enabled Public Folder email addresses.
• Receive migration statistics. See How do I request statistics for my migration project?