Discover the enhanced support for Teams Private Chat Rehydration migrations with MigrationWiz, which is replacing the Teams Private Chat mailbox migration. This comprehensive guide will walk you through each step of your migration project, ensuring a smooth and successful transition.

This migration type also supports Teams Private Chat GCC Low.

MigrationWiz

MigrationWiz is a migration tool, not a syncing tool. If changes are made at the source after migration, they do not sync to the destination, nor do the 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.

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

Prerequisites

When using MigrationWiz, it is important to understand the migration requirements, the user role, and the security group requirements for both the source and destination endpoints.

• The migration service account for the source endpoint needs to be a member of the MigrationWiz security group but does not need an admin role.
• The users at source must be licensed. Otherwise, they will not be discovered.
• For the destination endpoint, the migration service account does not need to be part of the security group or to have an admin role. The only prerequisite is to have an active Teams license applied and must be on a cloud-only account.
• For Team Private Chat GCC Low environments, it is recommended that both the registered app and service account be excluded from Conditional Access Policies that may block successful credential verification or data transfer. This applies specifically to Conditional Access Policies restricting access to certain locations or specific networks.

  Important

  As organizations increasingly adopt Zero Trust Architecture (in line with guidelines from Microsoft, NIST, CISA, etc.), these Conditional Access Policies are becoming more common. Exempting the app and service account from these policies will help ensure seamless operation and data flow.
  For more information on this topic, please review the design principles and dependencies and the framework and policy articles.

Licensing

For now, this type of migration does not need any licenses. 

Limitations

Consider the following limitations for this type of migration.

• Keep in mind that MigrationWiz does not support the following features and environments, however, we are actively working on implementing them:
  • GCC High migrations.
  • Project sharing.
• App password usage, MFA/2FA, and ADFS are not supported for the migration admin account/service account being used by this endpoint.
• The conversations are migrated as chat threads only. 
• Only the last 30 days (starting from your migration) are migrated and rehydrated.
• Default user mapping is supported based on the display name and line items only.
• The Autodiscover feature only discovers users with Teams active licenses.
• The Autodiscover feature is only supported at the source endpoint.
• Consider the following information regarding the line items edition. 
  • Line items edition is not supported during migration. Neither if a previous migration has already created chat threads and messages.
  • However, a line item can be edited after verifying credentials or if a previous full migration has not migrated any chat threads and messages.
• Teams Private Chat migrations of users who do not have a Teams license at the destination endpoint are not supported.
  

  Warning

  Please review the Realigning global licensing for Microsoft 365 article for more information regarding changes to Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Microsoft Teams licensing.

Migrated Items

Below you can find a list of migrated and non-migrated items. We are constantly working to create a better migration experience for you so these items may change over time.

Prepare the Source Environment

Verify to grant the requested permissions mentioned below.

• Establish IPLockdown by following the steps in this article.
• Verify that the migration service account for the source endpoint is a member of the MigrationWiz security group before granting permissions.
• Make sure that the Teams application permission has been given. Grant application permissions at the source using the MigrationWiz-PCH-FullControl permission level.

Add the Migration Service Account to the Security Group

Besides, complete the steps outlined below to add a migration service account to a security group.

1. Create a new Security Group named “MigrationWiz” on the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal. If you have not created a security group before, follow Microsoft's instructions.
2. Create a new migration service account. This account must have an active Teams license applied and must be on a cloud-only account. On-premises and hybrid user account types are not supported.
3. Add a new migration service account to the previously created security group as a member.

Prepare the Destination Environment

Double-check to grant the requested permissions mentioned below.

• Verify that the migration service account for the destination endpoint has an active Teams license applied and must be on a cloud-only account.
• Make sure that the Teams application permission has been given. Grant application permissions at the destination using the MigrationWiz-PCH-DelegateAccess permission level.

MigrationWiz Steps

Create a Collaboration (Private Chats) Project

1. Go to Projects.
2. Click Create Project.
3. Select Collaboration (Private Chats) Project.
4. Update the project information.
   1. Add a Project Name.
   2. Select a Customer from the drop-down.
   3. Click Next Step.
5. Create or choose your source and destination endpoint by following the next steps in the section above.
6. Click your Save Project.

Endpoints

The steps in this section outline how to create the endpoints in MigrationWiz. Consider only ten endpoints will be shown when selecting an existing endpoint. 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 with any unique spellings or capitalization you may have used.

Create your Endpoints

Verify that both, the source and destination endpoints, are Microsoft Teams Private Chat. Variable endpoints are not supported.

Choose the Region of Destination Tenant

The Region of Destination Tenant feature optimizes migration performance and speed by identifying the region closest to the destination tenant (continent-level). For Microsoft 365 endpoints, MigrationWiz detects and selects the appropriate region automatically once you create and save your project.

Please note that each time you edit your project endpoints, the following message will appear at the top of your project window (where XXXX is the detected region):

Automatically detected destination tenant's region and assigned to the 'BitTitan Datacenter' in XXXX.

For this migration type, you cannot manually change the region of the destination tenant. In case you need to modify it, contact our support team.

Validate your Endpoint

Once the information has been provided for both the source and destination endpoints and the customer selects Save and Go to Summary, MigrationWiz performs an endpoint validation check. This validation will show you the alerts and issues you might encounter with the project creation.

Add Users

There are three ways to add users to the migration, Autodiscover, Quick Add, and Bulk Add. Either of these options may be used, or a combination of them. Please read through each option before beginning your process.

Generally, Quick Add is used for small migrations, proof of concept migrations, and other tests, while Bulk Add is used for large migrations and full migration passes. 

We recommend you follow the Autodiscover process to find all the user's chats you are moving, then select either Quick Add or Bulk Add.

Advanced Options

Configure or edit your project's advanced options by going to the Edit Project dropdown and selecting Advanced Options.

The following advanced options may be useful for your migration. 

Support Tab

Consider that each Support Option includes the "=" character. You can add blank fields by clicking the "+" button, and delete a field by clicking the trash can icon next to it.

• PCHScopeDiscovery=<Name of the source security group> Add this advanced option in case you want to use the Autodiscovery feature. This AO allows MigrationWiz to discover all the users added to the source security group.

  Tip

  You can find the <Name of the source security group> in the source tenant's Microsoft 365 admin center by navigating to Teams & groups > Active teams & groups. You can find your security group name in the Security groups tab.
  
  The group's name should be copied and pasted as it is, with spaces if such exist.

Verify Credentials

After adding the users, verify the credentials.

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

Once complete, the verification results will be shown in the Status section.​  Wait until the status changes to Completed (Verification). Then you can go ahead with the rest of the steps.

Performing a Migration

Keep in mind the following process to start with the migration.

1. Select the line item to migrate by clicking its checkbox.
2. Click the start dropdown list and select Full Migration.
3. Verify that the Private chats checkbox is selected.
4. Select the Add selected user(s) to hydrated chats checkbox.
   
   

   Warning

   In case you do not select the Add selected user(s) to hydrated chat checkbox, users that have been part of the chat will not be added to it, only the Admin will appear and the name of the chat will still be migrated as UserName1, UserName2, and so on.

5. Click Start Migration.

Resolve Errors

Errors vary widely, so if you encounter migration errors, refer to the Collaboration error list and follow the steps listed under Resolution. For specific, Team Private Chat migration errors review the Troubleshooting article.

If a migration is completed successfully but not all members show up on the Teams destination, the users may take extra time to sync.  

Run Retry Errors

Each error logged represents an item that was not migrated. MigrationWiz contains a mode in which you can resubmit the migration to retry failed items. This mode of operation is always free of charge. You may only submit mailboxes in this mode only if they satisfy all of the following conditions:

• The last migration was completed successfully.
• The mailbox contains at least one error.

If your mailbox does not satisfy these conditions, you will receive a warning when submitting the migration in this mode and your request will not be fulfilled.

To submit one or more mailboxes in retry mode, perform the following steps:

1. Click the Go To My Projects button.
2. Select the project that contains the line item you want to retry.
3. Select the items with migration errors.
4. Click on the Start button.
5. Select Retry Errors from the menu.
6. Click the Retry Errors button.

When errors are repaired, they will disappear from the error log. Some errors may not disappear if the Source item was not reprocessed (due to filters, for example), deleted, or moved, or if the item failed again. 

If problems persist contact Support.

Multi-pass Migration

Teams Private Chat allows Multi-pass migration always considering the limitations mentioned above. 

Consider that MigrationWiz supports Multi-pass migration for both new and old chats. This means that new messages can be migrated in subsequent passes. However, if messages are deleted after an initial migration pass, these deletions will not be reflected in subsequent migration passes.

Post-Migration Steps

After your migration, you may need to perform one or more of the following options. Please review them carefully and follow the steps outlined in each.

Clean Up

The Clean up feature removes the migrating Migration user’s accounts from all the migrated chat threads. To perform it, please follow the steps below click the Start dropdown and select Clean-up Resource.