This article will guide you through the migration process from Google Groups to Microsoft 365 Groups. This migration requires several prerequisites for successful completion, including Google Vault licenses and pre-provisioning of the destination groups, which may impact the migration timeline. Review this document carefully before beginning the migration process.

Items located in the root folder of the mailbox are not migrated.

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 cannot handle scenarios such as conflict resolution without user interaction.

Prerequisites

It is important to note the following prerequisites to have a smooth migration:

• The source administrator must have a valid Google Vault license before proceeding with the migration project.

• You must provision Microsoft groups and all members at the destination before migration. MigrationWiz does not auto-provision the Microsoft Groups and members at the destination.

• Google Groups requires “Conversation History” to be enabled for conversations to be kept. A collaborative inbox has “Conversation History” enabled by default. However, it is recommended to verify this in the Group’s setting.

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:

1. Purchase Licenses.
2. Create a Customer.
3. Apply Licenses.
4. Review Considerations.

Limitations

Some of the following limitations are an inheritance from the APIs used as well as the capabilities of the destination.

• Nested Groups which are members of other Groups are not migrated.

• Conversation tags like “Star”, “Abuse”, “Report”, and “Locked” are not migrated due to a lack of data from the Source extract. Conversations with these tags are migrated, however.

• Collaborative Inbox features like “Assign to me”, “Assign to someone”, “Mark as completed”, “Mark as duplicated” and “Mark as no actions” are not migrated as these are not supported in Microsoft Groups. The conversations are migrated.

• Conversations under “Moderated” or “Pending” are not migrated due to a lack of data from the source extract.

• In MigrationWiz, Google Groups messages are exported and migrated individually to the Microsoft Groups destination, while the Google Groups app shows the number of threads and messages within the thread. There will be a mismatch of migrated item counts between what is indicated in MigrationWiz and Google Groups itself.

• In a multi-pass scenario, MigrationWiz does not need to apply a new RecipientMapping Advanced Option to members who were migrated in the first pass.

  • The user needs to reset the item before carrying out the migration for RecipientMapping to implement the new mapping to members who were migrated in the first pass.

• In a multi-pass scenario, MigrationWiz cannot identify and re-migrate a deleted member in the destination groups if the user has manually removed the member from the destination group, reset the item, and run a multi-pass migration.

  • Users can check the “Do not search Destination for duplicates” option to overwrite all previously migrated members during a multi-pass migration to ensure all members are migrated if changes have been made.

Migrated Items

The following section provides information on which items are and are not migrated in this scenario and how those items will appear on the destination. 

Prepare the Source Environment

Google Groups Endpoint

This endpoint requires your tenant service account to be set up and Google APIs to be enabled. 

Prerequisites

• Subscription to Google Cloud Platform.

• Google Super Administrator account.

• Ability to set up a service account on the G Suite tenant.

• Service account must be set up before the MigrationWiz project is created.

• Administrator must have Google Vault access privileges.

Create a Google Project

1. Go to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Console and sign in as a super administrator. Choose one of the options below:

   • If it is your first time using the Google Cloud Platform Console, agree to the Terms of Service and click Create Project.

   • If you have used Google Cloud Platform Console before, at the top of the screen next to your most recent project name, click Down to open your projects list. Then, click New Project.

2. Enter a project name and click Create.

Enable APIs for Service Account

1. Click Menu () > APIs & Services > Library, from the Google Cloud Platform Console.

2. Enable the following APIs by selecting the specific API and clicking Enable. Repeat for each API:

   • Groups settings API

   • Google Vault API

   • Admin SDK API

Make sure that the respective services are enabled within the Google tenant. You can control services for your users by following the instructions on this page: G Suite and Google Services Access.

Create a Customer Tenant Service Account

1. Click Menu > IAM & Admin > Service accounts, from the Google Cloud Platform Console.
2. Click Create Service Account and enter a name.

3. Click Create.

4. Assign the role of Owner to the new Service Account by selecting Owner from the Role drop-down menu.
5. Click Done.
6. You will now be returned to the "Service Accounts" page. 
7. On the ‘Service accounts' page, click the vertical ellipsis “⋮” under the 'Actions’ column for the service account created above, and click on Manage Keys.
8. Click + Add Key.
9. Click Create New Key.
10. Make sure that JSON is selected as "Key Type."
11. Click Create.
12. Click Close.
    • Make sure that you download the key as a JSON file and make a note of the name and location of the file. This JSON file will be used when setting up the migration endpoint in the Mailbox Migration project.
    • The JSON file must contain information in the following fields: “type”, “private key”, and “client email”. If these mandatory fields are empty the file upload during endpoint creation will fail.

Find your Unique ID

From the service account, set up in Step 3: Create a Customer Tenant Account.

1. Find the Unique ID field for that service account by clicking the Column Display Options “|||” button in the upper right corner above Actions.
2. Select the Unique ID checkbox.
3. Click Ok.
4. Copy the unique ID number. This Client ID number will be used in a later step.
   • This Client ID should be considered similar to Administrator account passwords and handled securely.

Setting the Scopes for the Migration

From the Google Admin Dashboard:

1. Go to Security > Access and data control> API controls.
2. On the API Controls page, locate the section Domain-wide delegation.
3. Click on Manage domain-wide delegation.
4. Click on Add new.
5. In the client Name field, enter the Service account's Unique ID.
6. For OAuth scopes, enter the scopes listed below:https://www.googleapis.com/auth/apps.groups.settings
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group.readonly
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.domain.readonly
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/ediscovery
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly

7. Click Authorize.

Assigning Google Vault privileges

1. The user must be a Super Administrator user and signed in as one.
2. Sign in to Google Admin Console.
3. In the Overview page, click on Admin Roles.
4. Click on Create a New Role.
5. Enter the Name and Description for the role, and click Continue.
6. Find and expand the list on Google Vault, select the following:
   • Manage Matters
   • Manage Searches
   • Manage Exports
   • View All Matters
7. Click Continue

Prepare Destination Environment

Microsoft 365 Endpoint

1. Create an account in Office 365 to be used for migration or use the global admin account for the tenant.
2. Create the Office 365 Group, if it does not already exist.

Modern Authentication Requirements

The steps listed in the Obtain Client and Tenant ID Settings for Mailbox and Exchange Online Migrations section of the Authentication Methods Migrations KB apply to both the source and 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.

Please review the documentation before preparing the destination.

MigrationWiz Steps

Set up a Mailbox Migration project

1. From the MigrationWiz dashboard, click Go To My Projects.

2. Click Create Project.

3. Select a Mailbox migration type. 

4. Click Next Step.

5. Enter a project name and select a Customer from the list. You can create a new customer if it has not already been created. To create a new customer, click New, provide the required details including the primary email domain and company name, and click Save.

6. Click Next Step.

7. Select the endpoints created previously or follow the steps below to create new ones.
8. Click Save and Go to Summary.

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.

Create your Endpoints

Please review the following tabs to create your destination and source endpoints.

Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and Client Secret

For Microsoft 365 Mailbox and Archive migrations, MigrationWiz adds the Application (client) ID, Directory (tenant) ID, and Client Secret fields.

While the Application (client) ID and the Directory (tenant) ID are mandatory, the Client Secret field is not. It will depend on the permissions of the user account that performs the migration. Please review the following information before the creation of your M365 endpoints.

• The client secret value is not mandatory if you use delegated permissions. Please leave the Client Secret field empty.

• The client secret value is mandatory if you use the Application Impersonation using API Permissions approach.

• If you already have an admin account with the Impersonation role enabled (not using the Application Impersonation using API Permissions approach) the client secret value is not mandatory. Please leave the Client Secret field empty.

For more information about how to get the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID values from the Application Registration, please review step 3 of this article.

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.

Endpoint Validation

Once the information has been provided for both, the source and destination endpoint, and the customer selects Save and Go to Summary, MigrationWiz performs an endpoint validation check.

This validation tests the administrator credentials entered into the project and the Modern Authentication setup only. If there is an issue, the screen redirects to the endpoint and provides an error message or flyout that can be selected for more information regarding the error.

Common Errors when Configuring Your Endpoint

For more information, review the AADSTS700016, AADSTS90002, and ADDSTS50126 issues on the Common Errors Using Modern Authentication page.

Add Line Items

Add the accounts that will be migrated, which are also referred to as items, to a project using one of the following options:

Advanced Options

The following advanced options may be useful for your migration. 

Support Tab

Optional Settings

• RecipientMapping Use it to map source email addresses to destination email addresses. The field on the right is a RegEx applied to the recipient's email address. You can use more than one remapping expression.

• UseHashMapRecipientMapping Use it together with RecipientMapping to increase performance when mapping large numbers of recipients.

• VaultPollTimeoutInMilliseconds=28800000 Timeout for Vault export process in milliseconds.

• EnableExternalMember=1 Use this Advanced Option to enable the migration of external members within Google Groups. All external members will be migrated to the destination Microsoft Groups as a “Member”. By default, external members will be migrated as-is from source to destination (e.g. user1@external.com (source) >> user1@external.com (destination))

  • Users can use the RecipientMapping Advanced Option together with this to map the external member’s domain with a different domain.

Default Settings for M365 Endpoints

By default, some fields are view-only. In other words, you cannot edit or remove them from the support options page. To edit them, you need to edit the source or destination endpoint of your project.

Among these default options, you can find ModernAuthClientIdExport, ModernAuthTenantIdExport, ModernAuthClientIdImport, and ModernAuthTenantIdImport. 

The support options above are required when configuring your endpoint.

Source/Destination Tab

Under this tab, verify that Use Impersonation to Authenticate has been unchecked under the destination.  Migrations to O365 Groups will not work with impersonation.

Verify Credentials

1. Open the project containing the items you wish to validate.

2. Select the line items to validate.

3. Click the Start button in your dashboard.

4. Select Verify Credentials from the drop-down list.

5. Once complete, select the Status section and view the verification results.

Performing the Migration

Perform the migration by completing each step in the presented order.

Trial migration

This verifies that your setup has been done correctly and that items will migrate as planned.

1. Select the line items to migrate.

2. Click the Start button from the top.

3. Select Trial Migration.

4. Click Start Migration.

Pre-Stage pass

This pass speeds up the migration by migrating the oldest items first, minimizing the time users cannot access their accounts and reducing the possibility of errors.

1. Select the line items 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.

Full pass

1. Select the line items.

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.