10 Key Factors to Consider Before Transferring Dropbox to OneDrive

Every business migration needs proper planning and structure. And doing this only becomes possible if you prioritize all the critical factors.

Regardless of the size of data and the number of users your company has to transfer from Dropbox to OneDrive, we recommend going through these ten factors, which may help you improve your planning and execution.

Or you can directly skip to our Dropbox to OneDrive migration guide.

1. Factor in Pre and Post-migration Activities

Many businesses make the mistake of only including the actual migration timeline when estimating the overall time frame of the entire project. However, to get a close-to-accurate timeline estimation, we also recommend factoring in the activities you plan to do before and after migration.

These types of activities can include amending terms and conditions, getting legal teams to work together, discussing project scope and commercials, rationalizing migrated data with delta syncs, and cleaning up data at the source cloud.

2. Cleaning up Before or After Migration

One of the most crucial decisions before starting the migration is cleaning or sorting data before or after the migration. While there is no right or wrong way, it is best to sort data and user accounts before migration if you do not have to stick to a tight completion deadline.

For example, if you have user accounts and data in Dropbox that are no longer needed, you can sort them out and delete them to lower the migration load. However, if you have entered crunch time and need to complete the migration in a fast-paced way, post-migration clean-up is a better option.

3. Plan Distinctly for SharePoint Online Migration

When making the switch from Dropbox to OneDrive, if you also want to migrate to SharePoint Online (like many businesses do), it is essential to have a specific plan exclusively for SharePoint Online migration.

This is because auto-mapping user accounts do not work if you have created multiple sites in SharePoint Online. Our Dropbox to SharePoint online migration guide offers better clarity on this.

4. Factor in the Plan Expiration Date of the Source Cloud

If one of the main reasons for your company to switch from Dropbox to OneDrive is cost savings, it is crucial to keep a careful watch on the Dropbox plan expiration date.

Factoring in your company’s Dropbox plan renewal date will help you plan the migration deadline accordingly. We recommend including at least a couple of days of buffer time in the migration deadline to make sure you have enough time to rationalize the migrated data.

5. Set Expectations for Commercials Right

In many cases, commercial agreements can be confusing for either the business (client) or the migration platform (service provider), especially for international business collaborations.

For example, invoicing payments are standard in the US, while UK and EU businesses mostly go for milestone completion payments. Therefore, your company must help the migration service provider set the right commercial expectations for a smooth transition to migration initiation.

6. Prioritize the Right Migration Environment

Do you want to transfer Dropbox data to OneDrive on a standard SaaS server? Are you a UK/EU-based business and want to run the migration within a GDPR-compliant server? Or do you want your team to jump in and run the migration within your company’s data center?

With a fully-scalable migration tool like CloudFuze, you can do any of these to make no compromises. Learn how CloudFuze can work for you by contacting our migration team.

7. Include All the Features To Be Migrated

When planning to migrate from Dropbox to OneDrive for Business, make sure to include all the features you want to migrate, such as sharing permissions, timestamps, in-file comments, file version history, shared links, internal and external shares, and embedded links.

It is vital to finalize these in the planning phase, as introducing a custom requirement after the migration may cause hassles.

8. Regularly Monitor the Migration

As part of transferring Dropbox to OneDrive seamlessly, it is important to monitor the migration regularly. In addition, make sure to get regular migration progress reports and include all the concerned people for receiving daily migration updates.

With CloudFuze’s managed migration, a dedicated migration manager will be available to you. This way, it becomes easier for you to keep track of the migration progress.

9. Don’t Stop Work at the Source Cloud

Gone are the days when API calls weren’t so sophisticated that businesses had to halt work at the source cloud.

Now, with protocols such as REST API, you can continue the work while transferring Dropbox to OneDrive. For example, CloudFuze’s migration engine transfers all the data and user accounts to the destination cloud in the background.

10. Sync Incremental Changes With Delta Migration

One of the best ways to accurately rationalize migrated data in the destination cloud is to sync all the incremental changes via delta migration.

Make sure to transfer all the changes you have made in Dropbox during the migration to OneDrive for business and SharePoint online to get the best value from your migration budget.

Send us your migration needs, and we will quickly get back to you with a competitive quote tailored explicitly for you.