SharePoint implementation – Some key issues to consider#4 – Plan for migration of existing contents

Continuing from the last few posts (SharePoint implementation – Some key issues to consider#3 – Who accesses what and with what privileges? , SharePoint implementation – Some key issues to consider#2 – What to Store and what to avoid? and SharePoint implementation – Some key issues to consider#1 – Estimating and keeping track of storage), I would want to share my experience with migrating existing contents to SharePoint.

We had quiet a few hick-ups here, including identifying and implementing:

  • The contents to be moved
  • The editing, version control etc.. strategies
  • Setting up the application with which each document is opened with
  • Sending information to concerned owners when a document changes……..
  • and many more…

but the important one that I would describe here is migrating the Public shared folders from Outlook to SharePoint. Some of the key requirements were:

  • Classifying the shared content to the classified folders on SharePoint (i.e quotes going to quotes folder in SharePoint etc…)
  • Ensuring appropriate privileges assigned on SharePoint for accessing the shared contents
  • Automating the process, in a way that, whenever a new document is created in Shared Folder, it automatically gets created in SharePoint

Well, there is a feature in SharePoint where in you can link a document space with outlook and then drag and drop your document from Shared folder, but due to security and rights issues, the feature was not working for Microsoft Exchange ( or may be Outlook) shared folder contents, we did quiet a bit of research on this, including evaluating different tools, and conclusively, we were able to achieve it by using a third party tool called Colligo Contributor Pro from Colligo Networks. It is a pretty good tool to have on your shelf for the price of it (…you would be amazed when you actually look at the price!!!!), I would not go through the whole list of features offered by the product (it is already available on their web site), but I would sincerely recommend to use this tool rather than wasting your time in trying to find out a solution for migrating document to SharePoint.

We were still not able to achieve the classification of the contents as per the folders in SharePoint (automatically), but once the contents were on SharePoint, it was not difficult to classify it to the required folders using the “Explorer view”.

Next I will be sharing my experience with backup and restore within SharePoint….

August 5, 2008 · Rahul Desai · No Comments
Posted in: SharePoint, Talman news

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