You will probably be aware that we have been working towards the removal of the box cloud storage system for some time. A significant inroad has already been made towards the reduction of box content by targeting high volume users. We now therefore have a remaining total of 20TB in box as opposed to the 72TB we started off with. Any researchers with data still in box are encouraged to set up a research site in SharePoint and then request the transfer of box data to the new site.
We are now turning our attention to the remaining 20 TB in box. We propose to start a rolling programme of migrations of team data into SharePoint and individual files into OneDrive. We will approach this department by department, starting 9 November 2020 and ending end March 2021. All of the areas that are proposed to move before the holidays have already been approached and are preparing for the move.
Timeline up to Christmas holidays
This is the project timeline between now and the Christmas holiday period. The timeline for next year is being worked on and IS liaison staff assigned to each Service Area for the 2021 migration work.
- Faculties of Arts & Humanities and Health Sciences & Sport – start migration period on 9 November 2020.
- Faculty of Social Sciences / HR – start migration period on 23rd November 2020
- Faculty of Natural Sciences – start migration period on 7th December 2020
Please see our project web page on SharePoint for the full migration timetable, an explanation of the migration process, plus resources to help you through the process, including videos, FAQs and LinkedIn Learning playlists.
What’s involved in the migration?
- An IS representative will contact your Service Area to start discussing how your SharePoint sites for team data will be structured. We recommend a structure based on your Service Area structure. We will take into account any existing Teams you have already set up (as they will already have an underlying SharePoint site). A structure will be agreed and set up.
- Our Infrastructure Specialists will set up a box account to correspond with each destination SharePoint site and an overview session will be given to staff to show them how to tag their box data for migration to the correct SharePoint site. This session will include an overview of working with documents in Office 365.
- At the allotted time, your team will have a fortnight to tag your box data
- At the end of this time, the migration of data will start. We have allocated a fortnight per area but it is almost impossible to predict the time it will take to move a given volume of data, due to variations in the structure of the data, issues with file names and so on. The good news is that you can continue to work in box until we tell you not to. We will do a final incremental transfer to SharePoint of any files that have been updated since the start of the migration period.
- When your SharePoint migration is completed, we will delete the data from box and then transfer anything left over in box that is owned by you into your OneDrive (your personal space on SharePoint). The OneDrive migration period is the final 2 weeks of your migration schedule.
We are currently adding this information plus training resources and guides to the transfer process to the Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways site, which is available to all staff. We will record the overview sessions for each migrating area and make these available in Stream – and linked from this page.
Thanks to those who we’ve been working with to date, and we look forward to working with you all in the New Year 😊