10 Best Practices for SharePoint Tenant-to-Tenant Migration

Tenant-to-tenant migration of SharePoint from one Microsoft 365 tenant to another is more than a lift and shift. For companies, it is about migrating a high volume of business-critical content, permissions, version history, and workflows without disrupting day-to-day operation and with 100% accuracy.

At CloudFuze, we specialize in secure, precise, and high-speed, large-enterprise SharePoint tenant-to-tenant migrations. Over the last few years, we have helped global organizations migrate petabytes of data and 5M+ users with zero business downtime.

As a result of this experience, here are 10 best practices that can make your migration easy.

1. Conduct a Comprehensive Pre-Migration Analysis

Start by taking a thorough inventory of your existing SharePoint environment for Microsoft tenant to tenant migration.

• Inventory SharePoint content (sites, libraries, lists, permissions, workflows, customizations).
• Identify dependencies like custom web parts, third-party integrations, and workflows that will have to be reconfigured upon migration.
• Define storage usage, growth patterns, and data complexity.
• Define which content to migrate, archive, or delete.

With CloudFuze, our pre-migration assessment tool gives IT teams visibility into the entire source tenant, helping identify potential risks early and create a precise migration roadmap.

2. Define a Clear Migration Strategy

Decide whether you’re migrating to a new SharePoint Online tenant or merging into an existing environment. Determine:

• Which workloads (sites, libraries, lists, workflows) are in scope
• Number of user accounts and groups
• Whether there will be ongoing cross-tenant collaboration during migration

For large-scale environments (with TBs/PBs of data), divide the migration into smaller phases or batches. Phased data migration reduces end-user disruption, enables easier troubleshooting, avoids network saturation, and reduces downtime and risk while ensuring data integrity throughout the Office 365 tenant to tenant migration process.

A clear-cut plan prevents conflict, reduces downtime, and offers a specified migration path.

3. Engage Key Stakeholders Early

Take feedback from business unit managers, compliance teams, and department heads. This will ensure business-critical data and customized workflows are given top priority in the migration plan.

4. Back Up Critical Data Before Migration

Before performing any transfer, make secure to backup your SharePoint data, including:

• Documents and libraries
• Version histories
• Metadata and custom columns

This ensures against unexpected loss during migration and ensures data retention policy is followed.

5. Pilot a SharePoint Tenant to Tenant Migration

A pilot run allows you to test the migration on a few sites or libraries before going large.

We offer pilot migration that replicate your environment’s actual migration conditions so you can fine-tune settings, workflows, and schedules before the full deployment.

6. Map Permissions Correctly

Incorrect permission mapping can break collaboration and expose sensitive data. At CloudFuze we map user and group permissions from source to destination, ensuring:

• Exact replication of access controls.
• No accidental exposure of sensitive data.

7. Enable Delta Migration

We recommend enabling delta migration to move only new or updated files after the initial run (one-time migration). Advantages are:

• Migration of all incremental changes
• Target tenant fully synchronized prior to cutover

Our delta migration feature for SharePoint to SharePoint migration is also auto-mode, tracking incremental changes at the file, folder, and site level.

8. Real-time Monitoring of Migration

Real-time monitoring enables IT organizations to address bottlenecks in real time. CloudFuze Migrate’s live migration dashboard provides:

• Deep progress tracking
• Precise retry of failed items
• Alert on permission mismatch or data discrepancy

It assures that no files or data are left behind when migrating.

9. Post-Migration Validation

Post-migration validation of data accuracy by:

• Running checksum or hash-based validation
• Verification of permissions, metadata, and file count
• Having department managers review business-critical content

With our tool’s post-migration reporting, you get end-to-end audit trail that verifies each SharePoint file migrated properly and successfully.

10. Streamline the New SharePoint Tenant Environment

After SharePoint tenant to tenant migration, optimize site architectures, re-engineer workflows, and remove redundant content. Provide user training sessions to ensure seamless adoption.

CloudFuze: Best SharePoint Tenant-to-Tenant Migration Tool

We at CloudFuze bring enterprise-grade security, compliance readiness, and proven speed to your SharePoint migration. From initial assessment to post-migration validation, our top Microsoft SharePoint tenant to tenant migration tool ensures zero data loss, no downtime, and full transparency at every stage.

Native Cross-Tenant Migration Challenges Solved by CloudFuze

1. Automatic Target Site Creation

You can’t migrate to an existing site with the native tool and must create new ones manually beforehand. CloudFuze creates the target sites for you so they match your source structure.

2. Group Mapping Without the Manual Work

Microsoft requires Microsoft 365 Groups to be pre-created and not linked to existing sites. CloudFuze maps Groups and their connections to SharePoint sites automatically, so you don’t have to.

3. No Need for Read-Only Mode

Native migrations need the source site in Read/Write mode to avoid errors. CloudFuze allows migrations from fully active sites so your team can keep working without interruption.

4. Support for Large Sites and Libraries

Microsoft’s native migration process can’t handle sites over 5 TB or 1 million items. CloudFuze handles large data volumes by batching and parallel processing so you don’t get timeouts and failures.

5. Automated User and Group Mapping

Instead of creating all user accounts and groups in the target tenant manually, CloudFuze maps them, even when usernames are different.

6. Complete Metadata and Permission Retention

Nothing gets lost in the move with CloudFuze. All metadata, version history, sharing links and granular permissions are preserved.

7. Delta Migration for Efficiency

If you make incremental changes after the initial migration, Microsoft’s tool requires you to start over. CloudFuze supports delta migration so only incremental changes are moved.

8. Intelligent API Throttling Management

Heavy migrations can hit API limits in Microsoft 365 and cause delays. CloudFuze manages API requests so your migration runs smoothly.

9. Detailed Post-Migration Reporting

Instead of basic pass/fail logs, CloudFuze provides file-level audit trails so you can see every SharePoint file migrated correctly and have full compliance visibility.

10. Faster Results with Parallel Processing

Native tools migrate sites one at a time. CloudFuze migrates multiple sites at once so you get results much faster.

If you’re planning a SharePoint or Microsoft 365 tenant-to-tenant migration, contact our team today for a tailored migration strategy that aligns with your enterprise’s needs.