SharePoint Migration Woes and Wins (EP 793)

[Uncle Marv]

All right, friends. Hello, I'm from our back day one at ASCII edge in Orlando and found a friend walking. Well, she was here earlier.

She was about ready to leave. And I said, wait a minute. We got a chat.

Kristen Pittman from sign Lucian's is here. And Kristen, how are you?

[Kristen Pittman]

I'm good. My power. You did.

I'm good. Are you really good? Or did you just say you were good?

Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]

Another conversation we had. I am good.

[Kristen Pittman]

Good.

[Uncle Marv]

I didn't say fine.

[Kristen Pittman]

You didn't say fine. You said you were good. I am doing well.

[Uncle Marv]

Thank you.

[Kristen Pittman]

Thank you very much. Yes. Came to the event.

Wanted to hear our dear friend Diana Giles speak.

[Uncle Marv]

Yes.

[Kristen Pittman]

Loved her presentation. So I made sure that I got over here to hear that. Yes, I was going to run out because I was going to go to Ghirardelli's and get a sundae.

[Uncle Marv]

Wait a minute. It's not even hot. Why would you be over there getting a sundae?

[Kristen Pittman]

Have you had a Ghirardelli sundae?

[Uncle Marv]

No.

[Kristen Pittman]

Okay, well, then I'm not an ice cream guy. All right. All right.

Well, that's the reason.

[Uncle Marv]

Okay.

[Kristen Pittman]

Okay.

[Uncle Marv]

All right. So logistically, letting people know you drove over from the Tampa area. Correct.

So usually normally a 50 to 60 minute drive. How long was it for you?

[Kristen Pittman]

Hour and 43 minutes. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. You got to love I-4. Yeah.

There was construction. There was traffic. But I made it just in the nick of time.

[Uncle Marv]

Yes.

[Kristen Pittman]

So that's what was important. Yes.

[Uncle Marv]

And when she means just in the nick of time, she walked in as Diana Giles was starting her stress stack speech. She was. She was.

That was sad. Let's let listeners know because we probably have some new ones. It's been a while since we've chatted.

CyLutions, not your typical IT company. You're not an MSP. You're not a vendor.

[Kristen Pittman]

Correct. We are a custom application software development company. We either take your existing application and redevelop it with more modern technologies.

We have a lot of clients who are living in Excel hell trying to run their business based off Excel spreadsheets. So we can take that whole system and make that into a software as well as a lot of people have an idea in their head of something they want to create but not knowing how to start. We can help with that.

We also do database administration, mostly for SQL database, SharePoint, and then D365. And we've also added, and I know it laughs about, we've also added Azure, the hosting of that Power BI, Power Automate, Fabric, Copilot. Okay.

[Uncle Marv]

You didn't, I don't have video of this, but I was snickering as she said, SharePoint, because I actually just reached out to Kristen a couple of days ago. As many of you know, I have had the 365 migration from hell and I would just classify it as that. Not the type of migration that I'm used to.

And a lot of stuff I didn't find out until after the fact. And I reached out because I can proudly say that all the data has been moved from that ridiculous hosted server into the 365 SharePoint cloud.

[Kristen Pittman]

That's a feat in itself.

[Uncle Marv]

But the first day the customers tried to use it, they couldn't sync because they were trying to do it with OneDrive. I did not know that. And trying to sync over 800,000 files and a terabyte of data, yeah, that took some time.

So I had reached out to you to say, oops.

[Kristen Pittman]

Oops. And my first response was, Marv, why didn't you call me?

[Uncle Marv]

I said, where have you been?

[Kristen Pittman]

Where have you been? We know where we are.

[Uncle Marv]

We do.

[Kristen Pittman]

Yes, so migrating SharePoint, there's a lot of different nuances that can come up. I mean, are you doing it from on-prem to the cloud? Are you doing it cloud to cloud?

Your instance was you were doing it cloud to cloud, but you were doing it on a server that you really weren't given access to.

[Uncle Marv]

Yeah, actually, it was a server hosted in the cloud. So it wasn't true cloud. It was just a virtual instance.

Yeah, and we had no permissions for anything. And we were told we were going to have it. Yeah, we'll log you in with the owner's credentials.

He's an admin. He wasn't. And then it was basically file structure.

They didn't have access to move files. I had to ask for those permissions.

[Kristen Pittman]

And we see that a lot where, granted, the MSP does not want someone getting in there and causing issues, doing something they shouldn't be doing. That's fine. But when you're trying to do something like that, you need global admin rights.

You need to have permissions to do everything to be able to do everything. Not be stuck in constantly calling and saying, hey, I need to copy a file. Why won't it let it copy?

Why can't I move this? Why don't I have permissions to do this? So there needs to be global admin rights as your first step to everything to be able to move that.

Now, the data you were moving, that's a lot of data. And on the flip side, it's probably not all data that they're using every single day.

[Uncle Marv]

No, it wasn't.

[Kristen Pittman]

There's a majority that they're using, but there's a lot of archived data that's sitting there. So we had the conversation, let's take that archived data and let's move it over to Azure Blob. And depending on how often it's used, maybe it's a cold storage instance where it's just sitting there.

We need it for posterity's sake, but we're not touching it. Maybe it's a hot storage aspect where, hey, we're going to need this every so often, but we don't need it on a daily basis. Yeah.

[Uncle Marv]

Those are types of things. So one of the questions I was going to ask you is I thought I had a pretty extensive checklist in the beginning to ask them. Basically 26 items that I asked in terms of how do you use the data?

Do you want it to look the same file structure-wise? Do we have access rights here and there? But I'm used to dealing with environments where I already have that control.

It's a client that I've worked with. I know their environment. I have access to all their stuff, both server-wise, cloud-wise.

This was a situation, they weren't my client. It was a referral. So my first thought was, you know what, I should have reached out to you and said, hey, from an outside perspective, what types of things do you ask going in?

Because you're going to see an environment that you've not seen before.

[Kristen Pittman]

Correct, because we're going into environments where we're not an MSP, so we don't have all that control. But we're relying on the MSP to give us that control. So we need to work with them, and we're saying to them, hey, these are the rights and the access we're going to need.

This is what we're going to need to do. Let's make sure we have this. You know, why they were holding back on you and not giving it to you, one will never.

[Uncle Marv]

I know why.

[Kristen Pittman]

Okay, all right, well, we don't need to go there. But, yeah, you, first thing is you need all the, you almost need overkill in admin rights, because you need to be able to have access to everything. You need all the ability to move.

Plus, you said you use the SharePoint migration tool, which we do not use. We've written proprietary scripts to move the data back and forth. The SharePoint migration tool is fine, it does work, but it has some issues with it.

And sometimes some of the gotchas come up and things. Metadata does not move real well with the SharePoint migration tool either. So that's something to keep in mind.

You know, it's, you've accomplished it to the fact that they're using the data. And I will go back to the OneDrive. I'm not a OneDrive fan.

I don't like OneDrive. It's great, I think, for individual use. It's not good for company.

And the other thing that we discussed is when they originally set up that SharePoint site, they set it up as a communication site as opposed to a team site. Yes. So, and that also plays into the permission aspects.

Because now you're, instead of using AD, and Entra, now it's called?

[Uncle Marv]

Entra.

[Kristen Pittman]

Entra. You're based on SharePoint groups. So, SharePoint.

[Uncle Marv]

Which, yeah, and that was fun finding that out as I was going through it, because, yeah, I was like, I created a library, but nobody could access it. I'm like, why not? Because you've got to go in.

And you couldn't add them as a group. I had to literally individually add them.

[Kristen Pittman]

That sucked. SharePoint groups are not, we always caution against those. And the other reason is, if you're using AD, and you have an employee that leaves, you take them out of AD, they're gone.

So they're gone from the SharePoint. If you're doing it through SharePoint group, now you've got to go find where that person is in every single permission structure and remove them. So there's the other issue that comes into play.

[Uncle Marv]

So let me just ask this question and get it out of the way, because people are going to make fun of me and stuff. How much of this can I undo and fix?

[Kristen Pittman]

Without the honest answer.

[Uncle Marv]

Yes.

[Kristen Pittman]

Without getting in there and seeing it, I don't have a good answer for you on that. But not all hope is lost. Great.

I will say that. Not all hope is lost. We just need to review what's going on, look at everything, see it, run some diagnostics, and I think, you know, we're going to be okay.

[Uncle Marv]

All right.

[Kristen Pittman]

Breathe.

[Uncle Marv]

Yeah, I'm good. Listen, it's not my data. It's not my company.

I did what I was supposed to. I moved it from one place to the other. Now they've got to live with it.

[Kristen Pittman]

Yeah. I mean, first thing is stop the OneDrive.

[Uncle Marv]

I don't know if I have that type of power.

[Kristen Pittman]

And you might not. And we also had this conversation with, it gets to be the fact where I'm so used to doing it X, X way. You've done that for so long.

[Uncle Marv]

They are. This is a company where people have been there, I know, 20 plus years. I've got a lady that we're dealing with.

We still haven't, we have not moved her 365 mail archives, because she started the PST file archives back from 2006 or whatever. Oh, goodness. So they weren't a part of the 365 migration.

They were part of a profile. So now we're trying to figure out how to get them into the archive in the 365, which isn't easy. Yeah.

Or do we just stick them on her local computer, have her connect them that way, and that'll be a discussion when I have back at the office after ASCII Edge.

[Kristen Pittman]

Change is hard.

[Uncle Marv]

It is.

[Kristen Pittman]

I get that. But then I also question, why do you need those old, old files, those old emails?

[Uncle Marv]

Well, here's the problem. Here's the other thing I found out. So again, listen, for people that have been following this migration story from hell, yes, you're getting new details, because I'm getting new details.

I got half of these details this past weekend when I uploaded these files. They're not being used as archives. They're named Archive, and she has three.

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3. She still goes into them just about every day, which was why it was such a big deal to get them over.

[Kristen Pittman]

Okay. So they're not Archive, even though they're called Archive.

[Uncle Marv]

No, I think what happened is their mailbox just got so big that they had to create these because they weren't going to go back and clean up the mailbox like they should have. And they did not have any other archive tool in place to properly archive, because it was a local hosting exchange that this other company was providing them. So all these things are coming into play.

[Kristen Pittman]

Again, change is hard.

[Uncle Marv]

So the lesson here, folks, is in the show notes, there's going to be a link to Kristen Pittman and her company. If you have any type of migration, any 365, any dynamics, anything, call them. She'll help you get a better handle on this.

And listen, I'm not going to apologize for not reaching out to you because...

[Kristen Pittman]

You don't love me, Marvin. I'm not feeling the love.

[Uncle Marv]

I don't love you. You're on the other side of the state. Oh, my God.

[Kristen Pittman]

Now I'm on the other side of the country.

[Uncle Marv]

You're on the other coast. I've been over there like three times, haven't seen you at any events.

[Kristen Pittman]

That's not true. When was the last time we saw you? We were in November.

We saw each other in November.

[Uncle Marv]

Okay, that was the ASCII code. I saw you, what, for 10 minutes?

[Kristen Pittman]

15, let's say.

[Uncle Marv]

This interview is longer than we spent time over there.

[Kristen Pittman]

And it's not that I don't love... I mean, I'm part of ASCII. I love ASCII.

It's just, it's obviously MSP geared, which is fine. That's perfect. That's my perfect partner.

A lot of the talks are more stack talks and such, and it's not geared towards what we do, which is fine.

[Uncle Marv]

You need to become a part of the stack that we...

[Kristen Pittman]

Okay, that's... Can you do that with your company? Possibly.

[Uncle Marv]

That way, if my next migration, I just say, hey, look, I've got a team, part of my stack.

[Kristen Pittman]

Yes, absolutely, because we could be... That's how our whole thing started. So we started as the partner to MSPs, because you don't do what we do, we don't do what you do.

So an MSP goes in, talks to the client, realizes there's a need, but they don't want to let the client go outside of that, because they might find another MSP. So bring us in as your partner. We're going to be partners.

We're going to work this together. We're going to make sure that the client is happy. And we're not going to try to...

I'm not going to try to take your business, because that's not what we are. You don't want it. No, that's not...

You don't want my clients.

[Uncle Marv]

So here we are, year four of knowing each other. We're finally talking partnership. Thank you.

[Kristen Pittman]

Well, thank you.

[Uncle Marv]

And I have witnesses, because there's people actually here.

[Kristen Pittman]

Oh, yes, there are people standing listening. They're like, what are these two doing?

[Uncle Marv]

This is what we do. These are the best shows.

[Kristen Pittman]

Oh, absolutely. They are.

[Uncle Marv]

Anything else new going on in your world since November?

[Kristen Pittman]

Not that I can... No, not that I can think of. I mean, just like I said, we're doing a lot more with Fabric, with Copilot.

[Uncle Marv]

Oh, Copilot, that's a big deal.

[Kristen Pittman]

Yeah, doing a lot of things there. More in the Azure world, I'm going to say, Power BI, dashboarding.

[Uncle Marv]

Are you helping clients put guardrails on their 365? For instance, the reason I ask is I have a law firm that they want to start using it, but they want to make sure that it's completely contained, but yet accessible to all their partners, and they want to use it as their own personal machine learning. Anything like that?

[Kristen Pittman]

Not... I haven't gone into that space yet, but I won't say we won't. I mean, we are a Microsoft development company.

Everything we do is Microsoft. I mean, .NET, SQL, SharePoint, D3C, all of that. So everything we do is Microsoft.

We're also the mindset, we don't really get into anything new Microsoft for a good six months to a year. Let it work the bugs out. Let's see where it's going to go, because as you know, things change rapidly in the Microsoft universe.

[Uncle Marv]

But we're partners now, so we'll be chatting.

[Kristen Pittman]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Uncle Marv]

All right, I can see that you're getting antsy. You want that ice cream. I'm not antsy.

[Kristen Pittman]

I love talking to you, Marv. You know that.

[Uncle Marv]

I know. Thank you very much.

[Kristen Pittman]

Thank you.

[Uncle Marv]

I see Giles sitting over there. She's waiting for you to say goodbye.

[Kristen Pittman]

Oh, yes.

[Uncle Marv]

Waving to the crowd. So, Kristen Pittman, CyLutions, link in the show notes. Reach out to her and tell her I'm from Marv.

[Kristen Pittman]

Absolutely. Thanks, Marv.

[Uncle Marv]

Bye.