SharePoint Pre-Migration Reports You’ll Need for a Successful Migration

SharePoint migration is a transfer of existing content to a newer and up to date SharePoint Environment which can be either On-Premise or Online. There are several checks which need to be performed before any migration to make the migration successful.

Why Are Pre-Migration Reports Important?

At FMT Consulting, we have successfully completed several SharePoint migrations from legacy systems, file share and older versions to newer SharePoint on premise or SharePoint Online. We made these migrations successful and on time with proper discovery which not only helped us for correct estimates but also helped a lot during migration process for resolving all hurdles on time.

Pre-migration reports are also helpful to understand whether you will need a 3rd Party tool for migration or can go with a Content DB migration.

Migration Boundaries for SharePoint Online

There are some boundaries which you have to take care before any migration assessment:

• SharePoint ContentDB backup cannot be restored to SharePoint.
• Custom Farm Solutions cannot be used in SharePoint Online.
• Code based sandbox solutions are not supported in SharePoint Online.

Pre-Migration Reports

Some basic checks need to be performed as pre-migration checklists include the farm topology detail, size of content databases and custom solutions. Some important reports need to be generated as part of pre-migration, or discovery, which not only help you understand the complexity during migration but are also helpful to prepare a better time estimation. Below is the Pre-Migration checklist which will be helpful for SharePoint migration:

• Farm Topology Information Report
• Content Database Detail Report
• Web Applications Report
• Site Collection Report
• Sites with basic details (including size of sub sites, this will be helpful for breaking content migration into separate threads for large sites
• Custom Solution Report
• Custom Features Report
• Custom Event Receiver Information Report
• Lists with workflows
• Checked Out Files Report
• Documents larger than 50 MB
• List Views Approaching Recommended Thresholds Report
• Lists without a major version limit
• Lookup Column Information Report
• Custom Master Pages and Page Layouts Report
• Custom Web Part Pages Report
• Deprecated Site Template Report
• Orphaned Users (disabled in Active Directory)
• Documents/list items with custom permissions
• Sites unchanged in the last 6 months

These reports can be generated through PowerShell scripts and also through 3rd party tools which provide a variety of reports.

Generating Reports using PowerShell script

Below are few examples of PowerShell scripts which can help to generate few pre-migration reports which will be using for migration estimates.

Web Application Inventory

Below is a simple PowerShell script which can list all Web applications and their associated Content Databases and their sizes. It will also list the No. of Site Collections and URLs in each Content Database.

Get-WebApplicationDetail | Out-GridView  #c:WebApplicationDetail.csv

You can save the information to a .csv file by using below command:

Get-WebApplicationDetail | Out-File "c:WebApplicationDetail.csv"

The above PowerShell script covers below reports:

• Get All Web Applications
• Get All Site Collections
• Content Database Detail Report

List All Custom Solutions using PowerShell Script

Below is another PowerShell script which can list all custom solutions in a SharePoint Farm:

$farm = Get-SPFarm

foreach($solution in $farm.Solutions){

   $solution = $farm.Solutions[$solution.Name]

   Write-Host $solution.Name

}

You can download all Custom WSPs with a simple addition in above PowerShell script:

$farm = Get-SPFarm

$folderPath = “C:solutions”

foreach($solution in $farm.Solutions){

   $solution = $farm.Solutions[$solution.Name]

   $file = $solution.SolutionFile

   #This will save the WSP

   $file.SaveAs($folderPath + ‘’ + $solution.Name)

}

Above script will download all WSPs at given folder path.

Get All Features:

Just like above PowerShell scripts, you can get the listing of all features activated on SharePoint Farm, Web application and site level.

Use below script for listing all Farm features:

Get-SPFeature -Limit ALL | Where-Object {$_.Scope -eq "Farm"} | Out-GridView

Use below script for listing all features for a specific site:

Get-SPFeature -Site http://sp2013dev:1000 | Out-GridView

With the help of PowerShell script you can get most of the reports which you need during your discovery process.

List All Workflows

Below is a simple script will be used to list all workflows in a SharePoint site collection:

Get-Workflows "http://sp2013dev:1000" | Out-GridView #"c:ListAllWorkflows.csv"

A small change is required in function call for listing all workflows in a csv file.

Get-Workflows "http://sp2013dev:1000" | Out-File "c:TempListAllWorkflows.csv"

Get Pre-Migration Reports from 3rd Party tools

We generated several reports using PowerShell in above section but if someone not having much understanding of PowerShell or development than it will be hard to generate these reports BUT you can get all these reports with the help of few 3rd party Migration tools which provide a no. of different reports which can be helpful during discovery and migration assessment process. License is required for the 3rd party tool for migration but few tools provide free Pre-Migration reports like Sharegate, Metalogix Migration Expert and AvePointe Discovery tool.

The best part of third party tools is that they not only migrate content from older SharePoint versions but also generate pre-migration reports for older versions which are not easily possible using PowerShell scripts.

Sharegate Reporting

Sharegate provides over 30 Built-in reports to gain actionable insights and take better decisions. Audit & Usage Reports Keep an eye on user activity through a single interface that displays all important events in your environments. You can also create your own reports which are very help full in pre-migration phase.

AvePointe Discovery Tool

The AvePoint Discovery Tool scans SharePoint 2007/2010/2013 environment and SharePoint Online site collections and store all of the scanned SharePoint data into a configured database, which can then be retrieved and collected into a report.

Metalogix Migration Expert

Metalogix Migration Expert mitigates migration risks by analyzing SharePoint environment and providing immediate, actionable steps for migrating content onto newer versions of SharePoint including SharePoint 2013 and Office 365.

How can we help you?

At FMT, we have a strong background with SharePoint Migrations and have a team of SharePoint experts and Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professionals who can not only analyze your environment but also gives you best assistance for your content migration which best fits as per your needs.