Choose your migration approach based on the outcome you need. SMART Migration focuses on selective, data-driven file migration, content restructuring and consolidated documentation. ShareGate supports Microsoft 365 migration, including the copying of sites, Teams, lists, libraries and content.
INTELLIGENT CONTENT MIGRATION
Discover your content, define what belongs where, apply the required metadata and execute the migration with file-level reporting. SMART Migration supports both straightforward file transfers and complex projects driven by business rules and external data.
Three elements of the SMART Migration approach
Section titled “Three elements of the SMART Migration approach”Discover and select
Analyse the source content and define the migration scope. Select files using source locations, reporting data or external data sources, including SQL, CSV, Excel and SharePoint lists.
Design and migrate
Define destination structures, filenames, content types and metadata. Copy or move files, distribute content across destinations and automate the steps required by the project.
Monitor and document
Follow progress through consolidated SQL Server reporting and Power BI. Review file results, identify issues and use reporting data to select files for retry or remigration.
SMART Migration capabilities
Section titled “SMART Migration capabilities”Data-driven migration and distribution
- Selective migration: Use a defined list of files, optionally including versions and metadata, to control the migration scope.
- Dynamic destinations: Use source data to determine where each file belongs, including distribution across thousands of SharePoint site collections.
- Combined files and metadata: Combine binary files with metadata from CSV files or databases to create structured SharePoint document library items.
- Legacy content migration: Migrate content from custom document management systems by combining file storage with associated database information.
- Simple transfers: Run straightforward jobs that copy files from one location to another.
Content restructuring and metadata
- Blueprinting: Build a model of the intended destination structure before executing the migration.
- Interactive preparation: Review and update folders, filenames, metadata and content types in the migration model while source content remains available.
- Bulk metadata updates: Apply changes to the model and review the results before migrating the files.
- Dynamic mapping: Configure mappings and transformations for content types, managed metadata, lookups and choice fields.
- Library restructuring: Split large libraries or file shares and distribute files across multiple destinations.
Collaborative planning in Microsoft Teams
For projects using the Teams-based planning environment, content owners and migration specialists can work together to prepare the migration.
- Content-owner participation: Let the people who understand the documents help define their future structure and metadata.
- Distributed preparation: Organise project groups through Teams channels and let multiple users prepare their assigned content.
- Shared documentation: Keep migration models, project information and associated reports accessible to the project team.
- Visual review: Review the intended structure and metadata before executing the migration.
Preparation, automation and execution
- Duplicate detection: Identify suspected duplicate files in file shares using MD5 checksums and present them for review.
- Long-path handling: Identify path-length issues during modelling and prepare compliant destination paths.
- Workflow control: Configure sequential steps, conditions, parameters, calculations and data transformations.
- Automated execution: Use the Automated Job Server where included in the selected licence.
- Targeted remediation: Retry failed files or remigrate selected files to address metadata and migration issues.
Consolidated reporting with Power BI
SMART Migration records migration results in SQL Server and connects the reporting data to Power BI, providing a consolidated view across migration runs.
- Track migrated files, failed files and metadata issues.
- Review progress across jobs and execution sessions.
- Document file sources, destinations and migration results.
- Use reporting output to define targeted retry and remigration jobs.
Where ShareGate fits
Section titled “Where ShareGate fits”Microsoft 365 structure and content migration
ShareGate supports Microsoft 365 migration scenarios involving sites, Teams, lists, libraries and documents. Its capabilities include metadata mapping, migration reporting, scheduling and PowerShell-based automation. For projects with specialised business rules or external data integrations, assess which requirements can be met through standard functionality and which require additional scripting.
Choose based on your project requirements
Section titled “Choose based on your project requirements”When to evaluate SMART Migration
Evaluate SMART Migration when your project requires selective file migration, external-data-driven distribution, content restructuring, collaborative preparation or consolidated SQL Server and Power BI reporting. SMART Migration does not copy complete SharePoint sites or Teams and is not a general SharePoint governance platform. Confirm the required source, destination, interface and licence capabilities when defining the project.
See also