This is the complete onboarding task flow for migrating folders and documents from Dropbox to OneDrive for Business. The Destination must be OneDrive for Business, not the personal OneDrive version.
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.
First Migration?
This migration guide contains the necessary steps to perform the actual migration, but there are many steps to preparing for migration. If this is your first time performing a migration, we have created a Migration Planning & Strategy Guide to walk you through planning, set-up, and general migration best practices. If you have never performed a migration before, we suggest reading that before beginning the steps outlined in this scenario.
Prerequisites
Please consider meeting the following prerequisites before starting your migration process.
Licensing
We recommend that you purchase User Migration Bundle licenses for this migration scenario. User Migration Bundle licenses allow the performance of multiple migrations with a single license. For questions on licensing, visit MigrationWiz Licenses.
To use your license by following the next steps:
- Purchase Licenses.
- Create a Customer.
- Apply Licenses.
- Review Considerations.
Purchase licenses by following the steps below:
- Sign in to your BitTitan account.
- In the top navigation bar, click Purchase.
- Click the Select button and choose User Migration Bundle licenses.
- Enter the number of licenses you want to purchase. Click Buy Now.
- Enter a Billing address if applicable.
- Click Next.
- Review the Order Summary and enter a payment method.
- Click Place Your Order.
Create Customer on MSPComplete by performing these steps:
- Click the Add button in the top navigation bar
- Click the Add Customer button on the All Customers page
- Select the appropriate workgroup in the left navigation pane and click All Customers.
- Click Add Customer.
- Enter the new customer’s information in the Add Customer form. Primary Email Domain and Company Name are required. The rest are optional.
- Click Save.
- Repeat steps 1 through 4 for each customer you want to add.
Perform these steps on MSPComplete:
- Select the correct workgroup on the top of the left navigation pane.
Important
This is the workgroup which the customer and migration projects were created under. Your account must be part of the workgroup if the project was not created under your account. - Click Customers on the left navigation pane.
- Click the customer that employs the user to whom you want to use the User Migration Bundle license.
- Click the Users tab at the top of the page.
- Apply the license to the users by checking the box to the left of their emails.
- Click the Apply User Migration Bundle License button at the top of the page.
Tip
We recommend adding users to the Customer page with the vanity domain. Then apply the User Migration Bundle Licenses, before editing to show the .onmicrosoft domain, if the .onmicrosoft domain will be used for the migration. - Click Confirm if at least one unassigned User Migration Bundle license is available for each selected user.
Important
If there are no User Migration Bundle licenses currently available to be assigned and your role in the workgroup is Manager or higher, the form that appears provides all the necessary information and will walk you through the steps of purchasing User Migration Bundle licenses.
Licenses are released once payment has been received:
- Licenses are available immediately upon payment if you purchase via credit card.
- If you purchase via wire transfer (100+ licenses), the licenses will be available once payment is received and accepted.
- We do not accept purchase orders because of processing overhead.
In both cases, you will be notified by email that payment has been accepted and licenses are available in your account upon notification.
For more information on licensing, including coupon redemption and other licensing types, see our Licensing FAQ.
Limitations
- Due to the latest Dropbox update, admin access is no longer automatic. Moving forward, to have access to a team folder by default, you will need to add yourself to the folder from the admin console. Admins will always have access to all team folders in the admin console on the Team Folders page.
- MigrationWiz does not support the migration of Dropbox Teams Folders from the home location at this time. If you want to migrate a Teams Folder, it has to be copied under the owner’s folder in the home location. Please see the Advanced Options section below for more details.
- MigrationWiz currently does not support migration for new Team Space in Dropbox.
As per Dropbox help documentation, ‘Some teams have access to the new team folder structure. If you see a purple folder icon with one person on it on dropbox.com, you have the new team space.’ - To enable folder mapping during your migration, see Dropbox Migration FAQs.
- When Dropbox is configured as the Source, shared folders and items are migrated to the destination but their shared permissions are not.
OneDrive Migrations
Note that OneDrive data may not be accessible for a few days after migration, due to OneDrive's crawling and indexing process. We suggest having your users log in immediately after migration but warn them that their data may not be available immediately. For this reason, it may be best to complete the migration on a Friday so the indexing can happen over the weekend.
If you are migrating to a Microsoft 365 Small Business Tenant account, the processes will be very similar. However, you will not be able to use admin credentials for your Destination endpoint and instead will use end-user credentials.
Due to versioning, storage usage in OneDrive may be increased when migrating with permissions.
Migrated Items
Please click the bars below to check the migrated and non-migrated items. We are constantly working to create a better migration experience for you so these items may change over time.
- Folders
- Shared Folders
- Code Files
- Documents
- Images
- Forms
- Executables
- Videos
- Audio Files
- Dropbox shared folder permissions
- Dropbox Notes
- Dropbox Bookmarks
- Dropbox Tags
- Dropbox Teams
- Version history
- Last Modified
- .paper files
Prepare the Azure Environment
If using Microsoft-provided Azure storage, you can skip this section.
- Estimate Azure storage costs. This step is optional but is useful in providing the customer with upfront storage costs ahead of time.
- Buy an Azure subscription, or use the free one-month trial ( this option is only viable if you perform a very small migration).
- Create an Azure storage account. We recommend that you create an Azure Storage Account in the same Microsoft data center as the Destination Microsoft 365 tenant.
- Log in to https://portal.azure.com
- Go to the Storage account you have created for Migration purposes.
- Click Access Keys for the access keys that need to be entered when creating the Destination endpoint. We recommend that you create an Azure Storage Account in the same Microsoft data center as the Destination Office 365 tenant.
- Take note of the Storage Account Name and the Primary Access Key as follows:
- -accesskey – This is the Storage account name for the Blob – example “accountname”
- -secretkey - This is the access key for the Storage account – example “W1RrDfkPNkfYfdVqizMNJjn5mXchwMP5uYBY8MsMqWTA7EubG911+4fZlki0Gag==”
- Create an Azure BLOB container. Take note of the name of the BLOB to be entered in the Bucket Name field in the project Advanced Options.
Prepare the Source Environment
- Create a Dropbox Business user account that will be used for the migration, and grant team admin privileges to the user. Follow the instructions in the Add Tiered Admins guide from Dropbox.
- Create a list of the Dropbox user accounts that need to be migrated from the Source.
Important
The connectors for this migration do not support invalid XML characters. The list of users will need to be checked for these characters and users with invalid characters will either need to be renamed or migrated using a GCC/China connection instead of v2. The invalid characters are: < > " ' &
Prepare the Destination Environment
Please consider the following information when preparing your source environment.
- Users being migrated need to be licensed to use OneDrive in the source tenant.
- Users being migrated must not be blocked from signing into the source tenant.
- Source OneDrives must not be set to read-only. This is initially for setup. Steps for setting up for read-only can be found under the Run Verify Credentials section later in the guide.
OneDrive Prerequisites
- Create an admin account in Microsoft 365 for the migration, or use the global admin account for the tenant.
- The easiest approach to follow is to use the global admin account. This was set up at the time of tenant creation. However, if you do not wish to use this global admin account during migration, then a new user account can be created instead. This will then need to be granted full access rights to each user.
- The admin account must have a full license assigned to it, to provision OneDrive for Business profiles for each user during the migration process.
Application Permissions for OneDrive
Continue configuring your destination environment by selecting one of these application permissions options and following the steps to enable permission levels at the destination.
The easiest approach is to use the global admin account set up at the time of tenant creation. However, if you do not wish to use this global admin account during migration, then a new user account can be created instead. This user account needs to have a license assigned that includes OneDrive and be granted Site Collection Administrator privileges to OneDrive in the project.
- Create a user in Microsoft 365 and assign a license that includes SharePoint. For step-by-step instructions, see the Microsoft article Add users individually or in bulk to Office 365.
- Set the administration privileges. Grant one of the permission levels listed below to the user account to be user as the administrator for the endpoint in the project.
- Global Admin. Microsoft has instructions to set these permissions here: Assign admin roles.
- SharePoint Admin. For specific permissions and project settings to be used with a Site Collection Administrator, see MigrationWiz Permission Requirements.
- Add the admin account, created in step 2, as a Site Collection Admin to the endpoint.
Important
The Global Admin or SharePoint Admin role does not automatically grant Site Collection Administrator rights to a SharePoint or OneDrive site. - Go to MigrationWiz-SharePoint-Delegated and consent to the app access when prompted. Once you click on Accept, you will be redirected to the BitTitan login page. This is normal and the page can be closed.
BitTitan uses app-based authentication for OneDrive, providing greater security and reducing the potential of Microsoft throttling. It replaces the previous Microsoft 365 authentication, which has been subject to increased throttling by Microsoft. This app-based authentication method is specific for Microsoft 365 tenants.
- Ensure you are signed in as a Global Admin.
-
Go to MigrationWiz-SharePoint-FullControl and consent to the app access when prompted.
- Create a new Security Group named “MigrationWiz” on the Office 365 Admin Portal.
- Create a new user that is not having data migrated in the project. This account does not require any administrator roles to be assigned. If you already have an existing user, that should be fine. This user must have a SharePoint license applied.
- Add the new (or existing) user to the previously created security group as a Member. Adding it as an Owner does not work here.
- Create MigrationWiz project.
- When creating the source and destination endpoints, enter the user credentials in step 4 that correspond with the endpoint to which the user belongs.
-
Add the support option UseApplicationPermission=1 to the advanced options of the MigrationWiz project under Support Options.
Create Admin Account
Create an administrator account in Microsoft 365 to be used for migration, or use the global admin account for the tenant.
Important
The admin account must have a full license assigned to it to provision OneDrive profiles for each user during the migration process. If this license is not assigned, MigrationWiz will return an error. To resolve this issue, assign a license to the administrator account, and resubmit the migration.
Create Accounts
Set up accounts on Microsoft 365 and assign licenses. These can be created in several ways:
Manually, one at a time.
MigrationWiz will provision a OneDrive (SharePoint) profile for each user being migrated. However, it does not create the user accounts; they must be already created.
MigrationWiz cannot provision a OneDrive profile for blocked users. If a user is blocked, this will result in a provisioning or access error.
MigrationWiz Steps
Create a Document Project
- Log in to MigrationWiz.
- Click the Go to My Projects button.
- Click the Create Project button.
- Select the Document project type.
- Click Next Step.
- Enter a Project name and select a Customer.
- Click Next Step.
- Select endpoints or follow the steps below to create new endpoints.
Endpoints
Endpoints are created through MigrationWiz. If you select an existing endpoint from the dropdown, it will only show ten endpoints. If you have more than ten, you may need to search it.
Consider that 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.
You may either use existing endpoints or create new ones.
Create your Endpoints
Please review the following tabs to create your destination and source endpoints.
Create your source endpoint by following the next steps:
- Click SOURCE SETTINGS.
- Click New
- Under Endpoint Type, select Dropbox.
- Leave the Provide Credentials option selected.
- Click Add Endpoint.
Create your destination endpoint by following the next steps:
- Click DESTINATION SETTINGS.
- Click New.
- Under Endpoint Type, select OneDrive for Business.
- Add the URL for your OneDrive for Business.
- Complete the Administrator Username and Password in the proper fields.
- Choose one of the Azure Storage options:
- Use Microsoft Provided Azure Storage, in this case, you can pass to step 7.
- Use Custom Azure Account Name, enter the Azure Storage Account Name and Azure Access Key (if using your own Azure storage). In this case, only numbers and lowercase letters can be used. If you enter an upper case letter, your migration will fail.
- Click Add Endpoint.
Region of Destination Tenant
MigrationWiz displays a dropdown to select the Preferred Region of the Tenant at the destination endpoint. This value updates the Preferred Region of the Destination Tenant field in the project's Advanced Options, and vice versa. You will notice that both values are always the same.
The Region of Destination Tenant feature optimizes the migration performance and speed when choosing the region closest to the destination tenant.
Tip
You can find the region of your destination tenant directly in the Microsoft Entra admin center by going to Identity > Overview > Properties, and using the Country or region or the Data location.
For more information on this topic, review this article. In case you need the multi-geo information you can refer to this article.
Warning
If you do not complete this field you will not be able to save your project and the “This field cannot be left blank.” error will appear.Add Users
Add the user accounts that will be migrated to the project. MigrationWiz allows you to bulk import users into the system.
You may use Bulk Add, Quick Add, or add the accounts to the MSPComplete customer.
- An email address
- Login name
- Password
- Mailbox status
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:
- Sign in to your MigrationWiz account.
- Select the Project for which you want to perform the bulk import.
- Click Add.
- Click Bulk Add.
- Follow the instructions on the page.
Advanced Options
Team folders are a feature of Dropbox Business that allows admins to create folders that are instantly shared with all members of their team or organization. However, unlike standard shared folders, team folders don't have an owner assigned to them in Dropbox, so they are not migrated by default as part of a document migration project.
Support Tab
- InitializationTimeout=8 This will increase the timeout initialization timeout window to 8 hours. There are no spaces on either side of the "=" sign, and the entries are case-sensitive, so pay special attention to the capital letters in the commands above.
- ShouldMigrateSharedWithMeFolderAsSource=1
- TeamFolderOwnerEmail=<team admin email address> This migrates the team folder only under the defined team admin account.
- DestPersonalSiteIsProvisioned=1 Use this advanced option if App-Based Authentication is used at the Destination.
Performance Tab
Set the Preferred Region of the Destination Tenant. This value should be set during the creation of the project, but you can always change it here.
Run Verify Credentials
- Sign in to your MigrationWiz account.
- Open the Project containing items to validate.
- Select the items to validate.
- Click on the Start button in your dashboard.
- 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 an email to all users telling them the time and date of the migration. During this time, they should not modify any documents in their Source Dropbox accounts, because any modifications will not be included in the migration.
Run Migration
For small migrations, we suggest skipping the pre-stage pass and simply performing the full migration. However, for large migrations with more than fifty users, we do recommend the pre-stage migration.
Pre-Stage pass
- Select the users you wish to migrate
- Click the Start button from the top
- Select Pre-Stage Migration
- Under the Migration Scheduling section, from the drop-down list, select 90 days ago
- Click Start Migration.
Full pass
- Select the users
- Click the Start button from the top
- Select Full Migration
- 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.
Post-Migration Steps
- Suspend the Source Dropbox user accounts to prevent users from inadvertently logging in and using the wrong accounts. Follow the instructions in the How do I suspend a team member's account on my Dropbox Business team? article from Dropbox.
- Delete all the Azure containers used for this migration. This will prevent incurring post-migration Azure costs for these containers. Be careful to only delete the containers created for this migration.