G Suite to Office 365 Migration: A Step-By-Step Guide from Our Pros

If you've ever done it, you know that migrating from one offering to another is never an easy feat. Beyond the "should I really press 'OK'?!" at every step to the sheer time suck it can be, migrations are not for the faint of heart. Yet faint of heart you are not, because you've found yourself here. In this article, we will describe the step-by-step process you will follow when migrating from G Suite to Office 365. Have a snack, maybe do some jumping jacks and dive on in! 

Migrating from G Suite to Office 365

If this article feels at all familiar, that may be because we wrote about migrating from Gmail to Office 365 back in 2019. Has the process changed? Nope! If you need those instructions, look no further. However, if you use G Suite (essentially the paid, business version of Gmail plus the suite of products Google offers like Sheets, etc. as their answer to Office 365) for your business and you want to migrate, you've come to the right place! Not sure if you want to migrate? Check out this article on G Suite vs. Office 365 to help you decide.

Ready to migrate? The following instructions will be your guide. These steps come directly from our BEMO Implementation Team secret vault. When you see the word "customer" that means you 😉

Table of Contents:

1. Things to Know Before You Begin 
2. Migrate from G Suite to Office 365
3. Next Steps
4. Need Help?

Things to Know Before You Begin

Limitations of a G Suite migration:

Google sets the threshold that only 2 GB may be transferred per day

What Will Be Migrated (Gmail API endpoints:):

• Inbox
• Folders/Labels
• Email
• Muted Email (as regular email)
• Contacts
• Calendars (including links for Google Hangouts within calendar meetings)
• Calendar Notifications

Note: Links for Google Hangouts are a new default feature added to Google Meeting. Microsoft Office 365 doesn't have the corresponding property to map. Therefore, when migrating to Office 365, the links for Google Hangouts are added to the beginning of the meeting description body text in Office 365.

What Will Not Be Migrated: 

• Calendar Reminders
• Appointments
• Chat message attachments
• Calendar Attachments
• Tasks
• Chats and chat history
• Google Groups for Business (including forums and collaborative inboxes)
• Google Categories (i.e., the Google category flags: Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums)
• Email attachments that are links to Google Drive
• Some calendar colors

Note: All color category meta tags are transferred over, but Office 365 does not have direct color mappings from Google G Suite, and so certain colors do not get mapped over, thus the colors are not displayed in Office 365 for the calendar entries.

Before you start, make sure that you:

1. Check that the Parent – Domain NS = SOA record by:
   • Going to https://intodns.com/
   • Entering the domain
   • Checking that Parent – Domain NS = SOA record
2. Have access to the DNS access
3. You know which one of the users is an admin on G Suite
4. Have access to target Office 365 tenant
5. Make sure that Google MFA has been turned Off for the admin user
6. Make sure that Less secure app access is turned On

Let's start! The entire process should take about 120 min.

Migrate from G Suite to Office 365

Step 1: Connect to the Customer Gmail Admin account

1. Connect to the Gmail admin account via https://www.google.com/gmail/ or https://admin.google.com/
2. Once you have connected to the customer's admin Gmail account, please make sure to validate that the Google MFA is turned off and “Allow access to less secure apps” are turned on as described below

Step 2: Validate that Google MFA is turned off and “Allow access to less secure apps” are turned on

1. Click on Account (top right corner) and click Google Account
2. Click on Security
3. Make sure that Use your phone to sign in and 2-Step Verification are both turned Off
4. Make sure that Less secure app access is turned On

Step 3: Add users in Office 365

Add users in Office 365 and create user mailboxes for the users by applying Exchange Online licenses from either a standalone plan or through a subscription that contains an Exchange Online plan. You will need to connect G Suite mailboxes to these newly created user mailboxes in Office 365 and the data will be transferred to the respective mailboxes in Office 365

Step 4: Create Skykick migration

1. Go to https://portal.skykick.com
2. Log in with your credentials
3. Click on Migrations
4. Click on + Data-only
5. Complete the form. Note that the most important is the customer email address as it is being used for DNS detection

Step 5: Create a Google Apps Service Account for a Google migration 

1. Go to the Google Developers Console(https://console.developers.google.com/) and login as an administrator (using the client account) on the domain that will be migrated.
2. Click the dropdown menu in the upper left of the screen to open the project window
3. In the project window, click New Project

Create

Step 6: Enable Google APIs

1. Click ENABLE APIS AND SERVICES

   The following eight APIs are required:

   • Tasks API
   • Contacts API
   • Google Contacts CardDAV
   • Google Calendar API
   • CalDAV API
   • Google Drive API
   • Gmail API
   • Admin SDK
   
2. Type the API name in the search bar
3. Click Enable

4. Click APIs & Services in the upper left of the screen to return to the dashboard and repeat for each API. Typically, if it states that you may need credentials, this can be ignored.

5. Verify all the necessary APIs are enabled by clicking API in the upper left and viewing the APIs in the dashboard (your account may have additional APIs beyond those listed)

Step 7: Create P12 Certificate and Password

To authenticate the Service Account against the Google platform, the Google Developer Console provides a P12 certificate and a default password – normally “notasecret”. This can be changed.

1. In the sidebar on the left, select OAuth consent screen
2. Under Application type, select Internal
3. Provide an Application name (i.e.: BEMO Migration), and then click Save at the bottom of the screen
4. Click Create credentials and select Service account key
5. Under Service Account, select New Service Account and P12 as the key type.
6. Click the Select a role menu, select Project and click Owner
7. Give the Service Account any name you choose (i.e.: BEMO Migration) and click Create
8. A dialog box will appear with the private key visible and the P12 certificate download will start automatically. Note: Be sure to keep the private key and P12 certificate accessible as they will be needed later.
9. You should now see a screen as follows
10. On the far right, click Manage Service Accounts
11. Click on the 3 vertical dots located on the right-hand side of the row and select Edit
12. Open Show Domain-Wide Delegation and select Enable G Suite Domain-Wide Delegation
13. Click SAVE
14. Scroll the bar to the right and Click View Client ID
15. Copy the Client ID and Service Account information into Notepad (or however you store your notes). These will be needed later.

Step 8: Give Service Account Access to the required Scopes

1. Go to https://admin.google.com/AdminHome
2. Click Security (If this is not visible, type "Security" in the search field)
3. Click Advanced Settings
4. Click Manage API client access
5. Refer to the Service Account information you created earlier, copy the Client ID value into the Client Name field
6. Paste the following link into the One or More API Scopes input (IMPORTANT: Ensure that there are no spaces in the text before pasting the values.) https://www.google.com/m8/feeds/,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/tasks,https://mail.google.com/,https://docs.google.com/feeds/,https://docs.googleusercontent.com/,https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds/,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.orgunit,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/carddav,https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.labels
   
7. Click the button Authorize. This will result in a screen showing the Client ID of the Service Account and the API scopes to which that account has been granted access.

Step 9: Enable Super Admin and API Access

1. Make sure that you have access to a Super Admin account. For more about the Super Admin role, see Google support documentation: Assign administrator roles to a user and Pre-built administrator roles
2. Go to https://admin.google.com/AdminHome
3. Click Security
4. Click API Reference (If this is not visible, type "API Reference" into the search field.)
5. Ensure Enable API access is checked

Step 10: Verify that the required Google Apps are enabled:

1. Go to https://admin.google.com/AdminHome
2. Select Apps
3. Click on Additional Google services
4. Verify that all the Apps are On for everyone

Step 11: Complete the SKYKICK PROCESS

1. Go back to https://www.skykick.com
   
2. Enter the Service Account Email ID, Enter the Private Key Password (notasecret), and upload the certificate
3. Click Upload
4. Click Verify
5. Once validated, click Next Step
6. Enter the credentials of the BeMo Admin account for the target Office 365 tenant and click Next Step.
   It will take few minutes to validate all the account and mailbox accesses
7. Now, match the source and target mailboxes
8. Once done, click the Next Steps button.
   Now, you will need to configure SSI
9. Click Configure SSI button
10. Enter the credential of the Gmail admin account and click Validate SSI.
    Once successfully validated, all source mailbox access should be 'green'
11. Now, click on the Next Step button
12. Validate the order
13. Enter any number within the Purchase Order Number, check the box and click the button Place Order
14. Click Confirm to finalize the order and get the migration going

Next Steps

Once you are ready to cutover, follow the steps from the next blog straight from our Implementation Team: How to Migrate from GoDaddy Office 365 to Microsoft Office 365 to complete the migration. Great job!

Need Help?

Phew! If you made it through all of that, you know that migrations are no small feat! Hopefully this how-to made it a little easier!

What if you don't know how to do this, don't want to try and mess it up yourself, or don't have the time?

We can do it for you, go to our migration quote builder and we'll give you the price of doing this without even having to talk to us. 😊 You'll get an example bill that looks something like this below.

Want to talk to someone about the specifics? Just start open our web chat on the right side of this web page or schedule a call with us below.