Progress for jobs without a Discovery run

An estimate, not a measurement

Without a Discovery run, the app does not know how big a job is until the job itself has moved its files. Every figure the Dashboard shows for such a job is a best guess, and the bars, the time left and the throughput are only as exact as that guess.

Why Discovery is needed to measure a job

Migration progress measures each job against what its last Discovery run counted: the files, the versions and the volume in its source. That count is the job's size. A migration's progress is what it has moved, set against that size.

A job that went straight to Migration has no such count. The app stores the job definition and what SMART Migration reports back — it never reads the source itself — so until a run has counted the source, there is nothing to measure the job against.

How the Dashboard counts these jobs

Rather than leave them out, which would make the whole migration look smaller than it is, the Dashboard counts each of them in one of two ways:

Sized by a finished migration

A job that has finished a Migration counts with what that run moved. It is a real figure, but not always the whole source: files left out by the job's filters, files that failed, and files added since are not in it.

Counted at the average job

Every other job counts as the average job: the average of what the Discovery runs counted and what those finished migrations moved, over every job that has figures.

Each time such a job finishes, its own figures replace the estimate, and they join the average for the jobs still waiting. The estimate improves as the migration goes on.

How far the estimate can be off

An average describes the jobs as a whole, not any one of them. Jobs differ enormously: one OneDrive holds a few hundred files, one SharePoint site holds a million. A large library counted at the average makes the total far too small; a small one makes it too large.

The percentages are approximate while estimated jobs are in the totals.
The bars can jump when such a job finishes: its real figures replace the average, and the total moves up or down.
The time left and the finish date rest on the same totals, so they are approximate too.
A few estimated jobs among many measured ones hardly matter; many estimated jobs make the whole progress a rough guide.

See how much is estimated

* Each bar under Migration progress says how much of its total is estimated: incl. ≈ 61,103 estimated. What has been moved is filled; the rest of the bar, up to 100 %, is dotted: it is what is left by the estimate, and can turn out more or less. The mark at the end of the heading says how many jobs are estimated. * The box under the bars counts the jobs each way, above the forecast: Measured by Discovery, Sized by a finished migration and Counted at the average. Rest the pointer on the estimated ones for the card that explains the estimate. * The mark at the end of the Migration progress heading counts the jobs without a Discovery run. Rest the pointer on it for a card with how many were measured by Discovery, sized by a finished migration and counted at the average, the average job itself, and the estimated part of each total. Only while no job has any figures to average are these jobs left out, and the mark turns amber. Its card then names them, with their status — the first ten by title, and how many more. The bars still show what has been moved so far, with no total after it, over full, dotted bars: they do not show how far the jobs have come.

Get exact figures

Run the jobs as Discovery first. Discovery reads the source without moving anything, counts its files, versions and volume, and fills the Power BI report besides. Then open the job, switch its mode to Migration, add the destination and set it to Ready again: its Discovery figures carry over, and the job is measured precisely from its first migration.

For a whole wave, an Import job can create the jobs as Discovery jobs, with their destinations already set; switch them to Migration once their runs have finished. See Discovery

See also