Versions and Metadata Migration for Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive

Use this guide to understand the limitations, behavior, and requirements of migrating versions and metadata for Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive.

Limitations

Please review the limitations for version and metadata migrations.

Document Properties

Microsoft Word document properties in Content Controls are not retained at the destination after migration. References to custom metadata values within a document appear broken after being migrated to the destination document library. This is a Microsoft limitation and can be replicated by copying a basic document to a new document library within the same tenant without using MigrationWiz. 

However, we have provided a workaround for this issue

Versions

Migrationwiz supports up to 25  migrated versions ( including both minor and major versions), including the current version. Before starting the migration, configure the appropriate number of versions to be migrated in the advanced options. Make sure that the Versioning checkbox is selected before starting the migration.

Tip

Consider that the Documents checkbox must always be selected to migrate versions during the migration passes.

Multi-pass Behavior

Running more than one migration pass can have different impacts on the number of file versions at the destination. During the first migration pass/run, a file and its associated versions will be migrated to the destination. 

The destination file will be overwritten with a new version if the source file has a new version. In contrast, it will not be overwritten with a new version if:

  • The source file content has not changed.
  • A version of the source file is deleted. MigrationWiz does not identify this as a change in file content, this means that if the file is deleted at the source, it will not be deleted at the destination; it will remain at the destination.
  • The destination file is altered in any way. If there is a new version of the source file and the project has the advanced option RenameConflictingFiles=1, it will be migrated over as a new file-hash name.

If you want to dig deeper into the multi-pass behavior, review the image below, which is well explained.

Destination_Override.png

Handling of Minor Versions at the Destination

SharePoint allows a file to have minor versions, which can be enabled through document library settings. However, MigrationWiz does not migrate document library settings.

According to this, it is possible for a source file to have the latest versions as minor versions at the time of migration when the latest minor versions:

  • Changed the content after the initial migration, then the file is migrated with versions to a destination where the existing document library settings do not have minor versions enabled, the final version at the destination will be a major version.
    For example, when File B, along with the latest minor versions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3, is migrated to a destination document library where minor versions are not enabled, the destination versions will be set as 0.1, 0.2, and 1.0. The latest minor version (1.3) is set as the major version at destination (1.0).
  • Exists without content change (e.g. metadata value change) then the destination version continues to be a minor version.

If the content of a file migrated by MigrationWiz is updated by users at the destination, the subsequent migration pass will not overwrite this file even if the source file has a new version available.

Metadata

MigrationWiz supports metadata migration, which is set and available at the specific document library level. Any metadata referencing information from outside the document library (such as lists or other site-level data) is not migrated. For example, these data types are not migrated:

  • External data
  • Managed metadata
  • Lookup

Multi-pass Behavior

Supported metadata is migrated in the first pass along with documents. In subsequent passes, any new metadata changes will not be migrated beyond the initial migration, as metadata is technically part of the document file. This also applies to folder metadata.

New metadata changes for files will be migrated with new versions on subsequent passes. Folders do not have a version history, so no metadata changes will migrated.

Metadata Checkbox Behavior

Selecting the Metadata checkbox will ensure that columns are created for supported custom metadata at the destination document library before metadata values are migrated. If the destination document library has already custom metadata columns at the time of migration, the custom metadata values (for supported metadata types) will be migrated to the destination even when the Metadata checkbox is not selected.

MigrationWizId Column at Destination

As part of the migration, an additional column named MigrationWizId is created at the destination as a watermark for migrated documents.

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