Email migration to Microsoft 365
Your email moves on the agreed date, with every mailbox accounted for.
Email is moved on the agreed date, mail is arriving and sending on the new path, and every mailbox is checked against the original list.
- What you get
- Agreed mailboxes moved to Microsoft 365, with reconciliation results and operating instructions.
- How it starts
- A free scope call. The price is fixed in writing before anyone is given access.
- When it is done
- Mail sends and receives on the new route, dependencies are checked, and missing items are recovered or recorded with an owner.
Illustrative sample · constructed example
A mailbox can move while its mail flow is still unresolved.
Pilot wave · accounts mailbox
Selected check
Can the accounts application send through the agreed replacement route?
Mailbox comparison recorded. This does not test the accounts application.
No recorded application send test on the replacement route.
Wave held: the application still needs its own send test.
| Dependency | What has to be established | Sample review |
|---|---|---|
| Mailbox contents | Compare agreed mail, calendar and delegated access. | Comparison recorded |
| Application relay | Send an application message through the replacement route. | Send test missing |
| Exceptions | Resolve or explicitly accept differences for the affected mailboxes. | Review still required |
| Wave approval | Keep the change owner, stop conditions and fallback in the plan. | Await remaining checks |
A mailbox move and an application mail-flow test answer different questions.
- Evidence
- Mailbox comparison complete; application send test missing.
- Decision
- Hold this wave
- Next action
- Application owner supplies the sending configuration and a test window.
Illustrative sample. Each agreed mailbox is checked; unresolved differences stay in the acceptance record.
The related record on the Results page is kept separate from this sample, with its own limits stated beside it.
Inspect the related recordOpen the complete illustrative document to inspect its fields and print a copy.
Open the sample documentWhy now
The work starts here.
Email has to move off an old host, an old server, or another company’s system, and there is a date it has to be done by.
Scope at a glance
- One coordinated owner for the switch
- Checked mailbox by mailbox before sign-off
- You own staff support on the day
If nobody acts
What waiting costs
A mailbox nobody counted before the old system is switched off can only be got back by paying to keep that system running past the date it was meant to end.
Mail that keeps arriving at the old host after the switch lands where nobody is watching, and you usually find out when a customer asks why their message went unanswered.
With no written rule for stopping, the choice to carry on or go back gets made in the moment by whoever is awake, and the business hears about it afterwards.
An archive or a legal hold that did not come across is noticed weeks later, once the old system is gone and there is nobody left to ask.
Check your own environment
Sounds like you?
- Your email host is being retired, or you have been told to leave it by a date
- Nobody has counted the mailboxes, so the real number is a guess
- Some mailboxes are shared, or belong to people who left, and no one has decided what happens to them
- You do not know who controls the records that tell the internet where to deliver your mail
Save yourself the call
Not for you if
- The mail is leaving your own Exchange server, which is a different job
- Both sides are Microsoft 365 tenants, which is a tenant move
- There are too many unknowns to price on a call, in which case the plan comes first
The work
What is different when we hand over
Every mailbox in scope is counted before anything moves, and each one gets a named destination.
The things the old system quietly owns are mapped, including the records that tell the internet where to deliver your mail.
The conditions that stop the move are agreed in writing beforehand, naming what would trigger a stop rather than promising to be careful.
The move runs on a dated schedule in groups, and each group is checked before the next one starts.
The new system is checked mailbox by mailbox against the old one, and every gap is closed or given an owner.
Acceptance
Checks before handover
Every mailbox on the agreed list has arrived at its destination
Sending and receiving are tested on the new path
Every mailbox is counted back against the list you started from, and anything missing is either recovered or handed over with a named owner
A fair question
The migration tool does this automatically, does it not?
It moves the mailboxes it is pointed at, and it does that well. It does not tell you which mailboxes nobody counted, which archives and legal holds have to come across, or what to do at two in the morning when a batch stalls. The tool is not the risky part. The list, the order and the check afterwards are.
Price and calendar
Scope, price and project calendar
Engagement price
Price fixed after a short scope call.
The price is agreed in writing before any work starts and before anyone is given access. The call itself costs nothing. What moves the number:
What determines the scope
- How many mailboxes are moving
- What system the mail is coming from, and whether both systems have to work side by side during the move
- Whether archives, shared mailboxes, public folders or legal holds are included
- Whether the switch has to run outside business hours
Delivery calendar
The calendar is set once the data, the dependencies and the cutover requirements have been checked, then fixed in writing before the move begins.
How engagements workScope & responsibilities
What is and is not included
The exclusions, what we need from you, how change is staged and reversed, and what is handed over at the end.
Exclusions
- Licenses needed to run the move
- Fixing faults in the old system before the move
- Cleaning up mail before it moves
- Help desk and staff support
What we need from you
- Approve the date and time of the switch
- Tell your staff what is happening and support them on the day
- Give administrator access to the old and the new system
Change and rollback method
- Mailboxes move in dated groups, and a group is not started until the one before it checks out.
- The conditions that stop the move are agreed before the first mailbox moves, and they name conditions rather than intentions.
- The records that route your mail are changed with their timers shortened in advance, so undoing it takes minutes instead of a day.
What you keep at handover
- A System guide: the configuration as delivered, the checks that were run and the unresolved list
- The counted list of every mailbox that moved
- The dated schedule, as it actually ran
- The map of what the old system quietly owned
- The agreed conditions for stopping
- The check sheet proving old and new match
Access, acceptance and support arrangements
How you know the work is good
Judge it by what you can inspect.
The method is written down, the sample records open and the demo can be broken on purpose. Read it the way your technical owner would.
- 01How a project runs
A first conversation, free. An agreed scope with a named technical lead in the proposal. The price fixed in writing before we are given access. Checks before handover.
How we work- 02What is checked
Release checks, access test matrices and ownership maps. Constructed inspection records on the service pages show the standard before you buy.
See sample deliverables- 03What you keep
A System guide: what was agreed, what changed, what was tested and what remains open. With it, the scripts and check results behind the work.
Next step
Start with a free scope call.
Tell us what needs to change, what must keep working and the deadline. The call is free, and the price is fixed in writing before anyone is given access.
Price the email moveOr write to [email protected]