Office 365 Tenant To Tenant Migration Different Domain – Step By Step Guide

User Query: How to perfrom Office 365 tenant to tenant migration different domain? 

“Can someone advise me on how to go from one Office365 tenant to another with a different domain name? My firm is moving from one tenant with the domain @domain1.com to another with the domain @domain2.com. After the transfer, the original @domain1.com will still exist. I’m working with a firm that bought a portion of another company, and we’re transferring their users. Also, we’ll need to transfer 300 users from @domain1.com, but only approximately 90 will be set up on @domain2.com. The remaining 210 must be preserved for later access.”

When companies undergo mergers and acquisitions, rebranding, or divestment, they must migrate from one Office 365 tenant to another.

As a result, the mails, instances, and OneDrive accounts must be relocated to a different tenant. You should be aware that migration is not a straightforward procedure, and that you must first prepare, satisfy specific criteria, and get permits before proceeding.

What exactly is a tenant in Office 365?

In-Office 365, a tenant is the domain account associated with the Office 365 Suite. A tenant administrator has access to all of the subscription’s features.

Migrating the resources and information of one Office 365 tenant to another entails a number of procedures.

We can break the procedure into two stages:

Preparation (or pre-migration) and migration itself.

You can use a professional tool or PowerShell scripts to achieve this operation.

So, in this article, we’ll go over some fundamentals that will assist you in migrating mailboxes from one Microsoft 365 tenant to another. In addition, we will discuss how to plan the migration.

 The process to Migrate From One Office 365 Tenant to Another

 Step 1: Pre-migration Stage 

1. Preparation of the Domain

Preparing the domain entails the following steps:

1. Ascertain that you have sufficient licenses for the necessary Microsoft 365.
2. Create admin accounts in both the source and target systems to guarantee a smooth transfer.
3. In the target, create user mailboxes, room/resource mailboxes, and distribution groups.
4. Use AD DS tools to perform AD DS consolidation and manually or automatically sync the source domain with the target domain if necessary.
5. After the transfer, instruct your end-users on how to use Microsoft 365.

1. B. Domain verification

1. Begin verifying the target tenant domain in Microsoft 365.
2. Create TXT entries in DNS and add a source domain to the target Microsoft 365 admin center.
3. Ascertain that the domain is only used by one tenant. The verification will fail if this condition is not met.

It will take around 72 hours for the change to be visible after completing these procedures.

1. Migration Scheduling

1. Create a list of user mailboxes to be moved and a CSV file for mapping.
2. Take note of the lowest TTL value on the MX record (of the primary email domain).
3. Disable directory sync for the source tenant (through the Microsoft 365 admin center) to prevent any changes to the source tenant’s AD DS account from being synced to the Microsoft 365 platform. The deactivating procedure might take up to 24 hours to finish.

1. Migration Stage

1. Stop the flow of inbound mail.

Change the primary MS record to an unreachable value or use a third-party service to halt incoming mail flow to the originating tenant. Because you recorded the lowest value of TTL on the MX record (of the principal email domain) in your preparation phase, you can simply schedule the time for this step.

1. Tenant preparation source

The principal mail domain should be deleted from all objects in the source tenancy before transferring the Office 365 mailbox to another tenant.

1. Reset the default email address to the Microsoft 365 account’s initial email address.
2. Using the Lync Admin Portal, remove all Lync licenses from the source tenant.
3. Restore the original domain’s default email address for distribution lists, rooms, and resources in order to migrate from one Office 365 tenant to another.
4. All tenant objects should have their secondary email address removed.
5. Run the command Get-MsolUser -DomainName xyz.com in Windows PowerShell to get any objects still utilizing the primary email address or rejecting removal.
6. Getting the target domain ready
7. It entails confirming the source tenant in the destination domain (do one hour after the previous step).

Follow Given Steps:

• Set the auto-discover CNAME.
• When you utilize AD FS, you must create a new domain in the target tenancy.
• Activate and assign licenses to the new user accounts in the target domain.
• Set the source domain as the primary email address for new users (done using Windows PowerShell). Also, make a decision on how to communicate passwords to end-users.
• Change the mail routing and direct the MX record to the new Office 365 email address once the user mailboxes are live.
• Examine the mail flow into and out of the target tenant.

Step 2: Migration Process

Note:

• When you have 500 or fewer users, move the mail calendar and contacts to the destination tenant mailbox individually. Limit the transfer of emails by any criterion, such as a date.

• If you have 500 or more users, utilize the multi-pass technique to transfer the data in phases. You can only transfer contacts, calendars, and a single week’s worth of data.

PowerShell scripts may be used to migrate data however, automated solutions are suggested since they provide total control over the migration as well as rapid and efficient procedures automatically.

You may easily migrate from one Office 365 tenancy to another by utilizing the expert-recommended Office 365 Merge tool.

Users can use the application to export their entire Office 365 tenant user mailboxes. The program offers a date filter option to assist you to save time while transferring data. Simply by setting the filters, one may export emails, contacts, calendars, and documents between the “From” and “To” date ranges.

To Learn How to Utilize the tool in Order to Migrate from One Office 365 Tenant to Another:

Step 1. Install and launch the application on your local machine, then select Office 365 as the source and destination from the first screen.

Step 2. Choose items from the workload area (email, contacts, calendars, documents). Then, click the Next button.

Step 3. To validate authorization, enter the source Office 365 admin ID and application ID into the appropriate fields, then click the Validate button in order to migrate from one Office 365 tenant to another.

Step 4. After you’ve confirmed your permissions, click the Next button.

Step 5. Enter the target Office 365 administrator ID and Application ID, then click the Validate button.

Step 6. Once the permissions have been confirmed, click Next in order to migrate from one Office 365 tenant to another.

Step 7. We must now establish a mapping between the source and destination users. To accomplish this operation, the application gives three options: fetch users, import users, and download the template.

Step 8. The mapping between the source and destination users has been completed successfully.

Step 9. To validate authorization, click the validate button in order to perform Office 365 tenant to tenant migration to different domains.

Step 10. Once the permissions have been confirmed, click the Start button in order to perform Office 365 tenant to tenant migration different domain

.

Last Words

The migration from one Office 365 account to another is a tough ride. To make it less complicated the pre-migration requisites and the migration process have been discussed here.

The manual approach of moving mailboxes from one Microsoft 365 tenant to another is very complicated for non-technical users, as it is based on PowerShell scripts. So, a professional Office 365 merger tool is the most desirable option to choose.