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'?!" every step of the way, 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! 

These instructions were updated April 12th, 2021

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.

OK, you're ready! 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. 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 DNS access
3. Have the First Name, Last Name, Username, Password, and Cellphone Number for the G-Suite admin owner 
4. Have the First Name, Last Name, Username, Cellphone Numbers for all the users 
5. Know which one of the users is an admin on G Suite
6. Make sure that Google MFA has been turned Off for the admin user 
7. Make sure that Less secure app access is turned On 

Let's start! The entire process should take about 90 min.

Migrate from G Suite to Office 365

Step 1: Preparation

1. Go to https://portal.azure.com 
2. Open Azure Active Directory 
3. Select Properties 
4. Click on Manage Security Defaults 
5. Set Enable Security defaults to No 
6. Click Other 
7. Click Save 

Step 2: Connect to the Customer Gmail Admin Account

1. You will need the customer's MFA code in order to connect to their account
2. Connect to the Gmail admin account via https://www.google.com/gmail/ or https://admin.google.com/
3. 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 3: Validate that Google MFA is Turned Off and “Allow access to less secure apps” is 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 4: 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 5: Grant Google API permission

1. Open your web browser in an 'incognito' or 'in-private' mode  
2. Open https://console.cloud.google.com 
3. Log in using your G Suite admin credentials 
4. Click Select a project 
5. Click on New Project 
6. Name your project and keep the location as default. Click Create 
7. Click on ENABLE APIS AND SERVICES 
8. Search for Google Calendar 
9. And click ENABLE 
10. Click on APIs & Services in the top left corner 
11. Click on Enable APIS AND SERVICES 

    Repeat the same steps and make sure to enable the following APIs 

    • Gmail API 
    • Contacts API 
    • Admin SDK API 
    • Tasks API 

     

    All APIs have been enabled 

Step 6: Create a Google Service Account 

1. Click on the hamburger menu  
2. Select IAM & Admin 
3. Click on Service Accounts 
4. Click on Create Service Account
5. Give a name (i.e.: bemomigration) 
6. Click the button Create 
7. Click on DONE 
8. Grant the Owner role 
9. Click Continue 
10. Under Grant users access to this service account, simply click the button DONE 

    Your account has now been created 

Step 7: Create a Key

1. Select the account by selecting the check box 
2. Under Actions, click on the three dots 
3. Select Manage Keys 
4. Under the KEYS tab, select ADD KEY 
5. Click on Create new key 
6. Select JSON and click on CREATE 

Make sure to copy the private key as you will be using it later on as well as the files downloaded on your computer 

Step 8: Make a Copy of the UniqueID

1. Click on the Email Account 
2. Copy the UniqueID in your notepad
3. Click on SHOW DOMAIN-WIDE DELEGATION 
4. Select Enable G Suite Domain-wide Delegation 
5. Click Save 

Step 9: Enable Google Accounts Delegation

1. Go to https://admin.google.com
2. Log in 
3. Click on Security 
4. Scroll down and click on API Control 
5. Click on MANAGE DOMAIN WIDE DELEGATION 
6. Click on Add new 
7. Paste the client ID you saved in your notepad earlier 
8. Copy the following  link within the Oauth scopes textbox:

   https://mail.google.com/, https://www.google.com/m8/feeds, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/contacts.readonly, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.group.readonly, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/admin.directory.user.readonly, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive, https://sites.google.com/feeds/, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.settings.sharing, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.settings.basic 

9. Click the button Authorize 

You should be all set!

Step 10: Start BitTitan Migration

1. Open BitTitan Portal (https://www.bittitan.com) 
2. Click on Create a project 
3. Click on Mailbox project 
4. Enter the project and customer names and click Next Steps 
5. Create your endpoint name and select G Suite (Gmail API) as the Endpoint type
6. Under Provide the Google service account credentials using JSON file, click Select and choose the JSON file that you downloaded earlier when creating your Service Account 
7. Under Super Admin, enter the account username and click Add 
8. Click on Next Step 
9. To Set a Destination Endpoint Name, Select Office 365 as the Endpoint type 
10. Enter the Administrator username and password 
11. Click on Add 
12. Click on Save And Go to Summary 
13. Click on Save Project

Step 11: Add the Account to be Migrated

1. On the portal, click on Quick Add Item and add each account you want to migrate from G Suite to Office 365 

   Once done, you will have the accounts listed as below

    

Step 12: Verify Credentials

1. On the portal, Select all the accounts 
2. Within the action menu, select Verify Credentials 
3. Click OK 
4. Once validated after 5-10 min, you will see Completed (Verification) 

You are now ready to start the migration! 

Step 13: Migration

1. Select all the users that will have their accounts migrated 
2. Within the action menu, select Full Migration 
3. You will need to purchase the licenses in order to move forward 
4. Once you bought the licenses, you should see the following screen 
5. Click Start Migration 

6. Depending on the size of your mailboxes, it can take from few hours to weeks (count an average of 2 GB per day) 

Once the migration is done, you will see the following 

Status: Completed (Full) 

Step 14: Cutover Steps: Domain Verification and DNS Update

1. 1. Go to https://admin.microsoft.com 
   2. Log in 
   3. Click on Settings 
   4. Click on Domains 
   5. Click on Add Domain and go though the validation process and DNS update process 

    

   Once done, the domain has been added and DNS updates are completed 

Step15: Flip Domain fromonmicrosoft.com to Vanity Domain

1. Go to Users 
2. Click on Active Users 
3. Click on the user which needs to have its domain flipped 
4. Under Account, click on Manage username and email 
5. Select the domain 
6. Enter a username 
7. Click Add 
8. Click on "…" 
9. Click on Change to primary email 
10. Click on Save Changes 

Step 16: Run a "Delta" Sync

You will want to run another sync in order to catch any emails that may have been received by G Suite during the DNS cutover. This step will make sure that you are not missing any emails sent during the last two hours.

1. Go back to BitTitan portal 
2. Select all the users that will have their account migrated 
3. Within the action menu, select Full Migration 

Once done, your email migration is completed!

You will need to enable the following to make your Office 365 tenant secure  

• Test that you are receiving emails via your Office 365 tenant 
• Enable SSPR 
• Enable Azure Baseline Security 
• Enable DKIM, DMARC 

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 speaking with anyone 😊 You'll get an example bill that looks something like this:

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