Introduction

This article will guide you through the process of migrating 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 we cannot handle scenarios such as conflict resolution without user interaction.

Prerequisites

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

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

• Microsoft Groups and all members at the destination must be provisioned by the customer before migration. MigrationWiz does not auto-provision the Microsoft Groups and members at 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.

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”, “Locked” are not migrated due to lack of data from 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 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 already migrated in the first pass.

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

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

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

Which Items Are and Are Not Migrated

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

Migrated

1. Google Groups Members

   • Google Groups member roles and permissions

     • Google Groups “Owner” >> Microsoft Groups “Group Owner”

     • Google Groups “Manager” >> Microsoft Groups “Member”

     • Google Groups “Member” >> Microsoft Groups “Member”

2. Google Groups conversations

   • Conversation metadata

   • Conversation attachments

   • Conversation labels

     • Migrated as Category in Microsoft Groups

Not migrated

• Collaboration Inbox features like ‘assignment of task’ and ‘status of tasks’

• Conversation tags like “Star”, “Abuse”, “Report”, “Locked”

• Conversations marked under “Moderated” or “Pending”

• Nested Group as member of another Group

Prepare the Source Environment

Google Groups Endpoint

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 you haven't used the Google Cloud Platform Console before, 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. From the Google Cloud Platform Console, click Menu () > APIs & Services > Library.

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

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 Customer Tenant Service Account

1. From the Google Cloud Platform Console, click Menu > IAM & Admin > Service accounts.

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 ‘Service accounts' page, click vertical ellipsis “⋮” under '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.

13. From the service account that was set up in Step 3: Create Customer Tenant Account.

    • Find the Unique ID field for that service account by clicking the Column Display Options “|||” button in the right upper corner above Actions

    • Select the Unique ID checkbox.

    • Click Ok.

    • Copy the unique ID number. This is the Client ID number that 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. Click on Security

2. Click on API Controls

3. On the API Controls page, locate section Domain-wide delegation

4. Click on Manage domain-wide delegation

5. Click on Add new

6. In the client Name field, enter the Service account Unique ID

7. For OAuth scopes, enter the scopes listed below:

   1. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/apps.groups.settings

   2. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group.readonly

   3. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.domain.readonly

   4. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only

   5. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/ediscovery

   6. https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly

8. Click Authorize.

Assigning Google Vault privileges

1. User must be 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, click Continue.

6. Find and expand the list on Google Vault, select the following:

   1. Manage Matters

   2. Manage Searches

   3. Manage Exports

   4. 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 doesn't already exist.

Modern Authentication Requirements

MigrationWiz Steps

Licenses

The Google Groups to Microsoft 365 Groups migration is supported by the Mailbox and User Migration Bundle (UMB) License types. Either may be purchased. Descriptions of each license type can be found in our Licensing guide, which is linked below.

Purchasing a License

1. Sign in to your BitTitan account. 

2. In the top navigation bar, click Purchase.

3. Click the Select button and choose the license type you need.

4. Enter the number of licenses you want to purchase. Click Buy Now.

5. Enter a Billing address if applicable.

6. Click Next.

7. Review the Order Summary and enter a payment method.

8. Click Place Your Order.

​​Licenses are released once payment has been received:

• If you purchase via credit card, licenses will be available immediately upon payment.

• If you purchase via wire transfer (100+ licenses), licenses will be available once payment has been 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 will be available in your account upon notification.

For more information on licensing, including coupon redemption and other licensing types, see our Licensing FAQ.

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.

   1. If the customer hasn’t already been created, you can do so here.

   2. To create a new customer, click New, provide required details including primary email domain and company name, and click Save.

6. Click Next Step.

7. Select Google Groups endpoint from the source drop-down menu.

   • If an endpoint has not been created, click New.

     1. Enter a name in the Endpoint Name field.

     2. Select Google Groups from the Endpoint Type drop-down menu.

     3. Upload the JSON file for your service account setup.

     4. Provide a valid super administrator email address for G Suite account which matches the end user domain.

8. Select the Microsoft 365 destination endpoint from the destination drop-down menu.  Note: do not select the Microsoft 365 Groups endpoint

   • If an endpoint has not been created, click New.

     1. Enter a name in the Endpoint Name field.

     2. Select Microsoft 365 from the Endpoint Type drop-down menu.

     3. Enter the SharePoint top level domain URL (Although the SharePoint URL would not be used in the Google Groups to Microsoft 365 Groups migration, we recommend it as a good practice and for future development)

     4. Enter the administrator credentials, Administrator username and password.

        

9. Click Save, Go to Summary then click Save Project.

Add migration 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:

• Quick Add: This option allows you to add items o​ne at a time. Provide an email address for source and destination for each.

• Bulk Add: This option allows you to add multiple items at once by copying and pasting from a spreadsheet or by importing a CSV file. The domain names at the Source and at the Destination might be different. Make sure to provide the right information in the project. If they are different, it's best to modify these in your CSV file, and then use the Bulk Add feature to import the users into the dashboard.

 

Advanced Options

Under the source/destination tab of the project's Advanced Options, ensure that Use Impersonation to Authenticate has been unchecked under the destination.  Migrations to O365 Groups will not work with impersonation.

The following advanced options may be useful for your migration. 

Advanced options under Support tab

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

• UseHashMapRecipientMapping - Use this Advanced Option together with Recipient Mapping to increase performance when mapping large numbers of recipients.

• VaultPollTimeoutInMilliseconds=28800000 - Timeout for Vault export process in milliseconds
• ModernAuthClientIdImport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx - Modern authentication client ID support for tenants not using legacy authentication (basic authentication). The masked value to be replaced as per the steps earlier in this guide.

• ModernAuthTenantIdImport=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx - Modern authentication tenant ID support for tenants not using legacy authentication (basic authentication). The masked value to be replaced as per the steps earlier in this guide.

• 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 (eg. user1@external.com (source) >> user1@external.com (destination)

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

Verify Credentials

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

2. Select the line items you wish 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 results of the verification.

Performing the Migration

Complete each step in order.

Trial migration

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

1. Select the line items you wish 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 are unable to 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.