Migrating to SharePoint Online from SharePoint 2019 is a significant step for organizations aiming to improve collaboration and productivity. Whether you handle it in-house or bring in SharePoint migration services, the platform offers real advantages: anywhere access, real-time co-authoring, and easy scaling as your storage and user needs grow.
Cloud-based systems reduce IT overhead and strengthen security compared to on-premises setups like SharePoint 2019. This guide walks through the full process and where working with SharePoint migration services or a SharePoint migration consultant makes sense versus doing it yourself.
The SharePoint Online Migration Process
The migration process breaks into a few core stages:
- Assessing your current infrastructure and content
- Planning your migration strategy and timeline
- Executing the migration with the right tools
- Validating and stabilizing post-migration
Many organizations attempt this alone and underestimate the assessment phase, which is usually where professional SharePoint migration services save the most time.
Understanding the SharePoint Online Migration Process
Evaluating your existing environment is the step most migrations get wrong by rushing. Understanding what you actually have before you touch anything, determines whether your migration goes smoothly or turns into a multi-month cleanup project.
Key Considerations During Evaluation
- Content inventory: Catalog documents, lists, libraries, and content types.
- Infrastructure analysis: Identify customizations, workflows, and integrations that could break during migration.
Microsoft’s free SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT) scans your environment and flags:
- Compatibility issues : features or custom code that won’t work in SharePoint Online
- Data quality problems : inconsistent or outdated content
- Performance metrics : how your current setup runs, useful for planning the new structure
This is also the point where most teams decide whether to run the migration internally or bring in SharePoint migration service, the assessment findings usually make that decision for you.
Creating a Robust Migration Strategy
A solid strategy comes down to four things:
Define your objectives : What are you actually trying to achieve, better collaboration, easier access, tighter Microsoft 365 integration?
Run a thorough assessment : Use SMAT to map content types, structure, and risks before committing to a timeline.
Build a realistic timeline : Factor in staff availability, training time, and buffer for the unexpected, migrations almost always take longer than the first estimate.
Set milestones : Break the migration into stages with clear checkpoints so you can course-correct instead of discovering problems at the end.
If your internal team doesn’t have bandwidth for this level of planning, a SharePoint migration consultant can build the roadmap even if your team executes it.
Choosing the Right Migration Tools
This is where most of the real decision-making happens, and it’s usually a two-way comparison: ShareGate vs AvePoint (with Metalogix as a third option).
ShareGate:
- Strong user-friendly interface, widely used by consultants and in-house teams alike
- Solid metadata preservation (version history, creator info)
AvePoint:
- Comparable feature set, often positioned for larger/enterprise migrations
- Also strong on metadata retention and compliance tracking
Cost consideration : both are paid tools, and cost scales with content volume, weigh this against your budget before committing.
Free alternative : Microsoft’s own SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) works but has limited support for content originating outside older SharePoint versions, and doesn’t fully support workflow or advanced metadata migration.
Manual vs. Automated Migration
Manual migration fits smaller, specific cases: custom lists, wiki pages, or unique configurations that automated tools can’t handle cleanly. It’s slow and needs careful planning.
Automated migration (via SPMT, ShareGate, or AvePoint) is faster, more accurate on metadata, and reduces human error, the better default for anything beyond a small, simple environment.
Executing the SharePoint Online Migration Process Step by Step
- Assess your current environment
- Choose the right migration tool for your content and budget
- Set correct permissions for everyone involved
- Run the migration with your selected tool
- Monitor progress and flag issues early
- Verify all data transferred correctly
- Test functionality and access in the new environment
Roles and Permissions
To execute migration tasks effectively, users must have appropriate permissions. Key roles include:
- SharePoint/OneDrive Admin: oversees the full migration
- Site Admin: creates and manages sites in SharePoint Online
Specific user access may be necessary for handling different content types during the migration.
Recognizing Content Sources
Don’t just plan for your current SharePoint content, account for:
- File shares still holding active documents
- Cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox that needs consolidating
- Other SharePoint versions or repositories not yet accounted for
Incorporating diverse content sources into your migration strategy enhances overall efficiency and minimizes disruptions. This comprehensive approach allows for a smoother transition as you migrate to SharePoint Online from SharePoint 2019, ensuring that all relevant data is accessible in the new environment.
Post-Migration Considerations for a Seamless Transition
Migration isn’t done when the data lands, it’s done when everything works.
Accuracy check: Sample-test documents and libraries against the source to confirm nothing was lost or corrupted.
Completeness verification: Confirm version history and permissions carried over correctly, not just the files themselves.
Workflow transition: SharePoint Server workflows don’t carry over, you’ll need to rebuild them in Power Automate. Document existing workflows first, then recreate them using pre-built connectors.
Best Practices for a Smooth SharePoint Online Migration
- Plan early : bring stakeholders in before the timeline is locked
- Choose tools deliberately : ShareGate, AvePoint, or SPMT, based on actual content complexity, not brand recognition
- Train users : on both SharePoint Online and Power Automate, before go-live
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Skipping data cleanup before migration (you’re just moving clutter to a new platform)
- Setting permissions incorrectly, locking users out post-migration
- Ignoring user feedback after go-live, missing fixable friction points
Use this as a working checklist, a proper SharePoint Online migration checklist should cover assessment, tool selection, permission setup, execution, and post-migration validation as five distinct sign-off stages, not one blurred step.
Conclusion: Embracing the Future with SharePoint Online
Migrating from SharePoint 2019 pays off in scalability, accessibility, and tighter Microsoft 365 integration but the execution quality depends entirely on the planning stage most teams rush. Whether you run this with an in-house team, a comparison of ShareGate vs AvePoint, or a dedicated SharePoint migration consultant, the fundamentals don’t change: assess first, plan deliberately, and validate everything before calling it done.
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