The Challenge
Following the acquisition of an acquired business, employees needed to continue working while their accounts, collaboration sites, file shares and Windows profiles moved into the group environment. The work covered multiple data locations and required permissions to be mapped carefully rather than simply copying everything into a shared destination.
My Role
I led the data and user-profile migration work and coordinated account setup, access, application dependencies and user support. I worked with the Eclipse Explorer team to install Eclipse on a new virtual machine on our server infrastructure.
Approach & Implementation
- Set up users in Active Directory and Microsoft 365 and prepared access in the target environment.
- Migrated eight SharePoint sites from the acquired tenant into the group’s Microsoft 365 environment.
- Migrated data from three file-server drives to the destination file server and applied appropriate access permissions.
- Moved Windows domain profiles into the new domain while preserving users’ familiar profile experience as far as the migration method allowed.
- Migrated email and OneDrive content using PST export/import workflows where required.
- Worked with the Eclipse Explorer team to deploy the business application on a new server VM.
- Extended internal IT support to the acquired company after cutover.
Business Impact
- Brought collaboration content, shared data and user identities into a more consistent support model.
- Reduced the need for employees to navigate separate IT environments.
- Re-established access around business and departmental needs instead of broad inherited permissions.
- Helped the organization absorb an acquisition while maintaining day-to-day business operations.
Outcome & Lessons
This project combined migration execution with practical change management: users needed their accounts, familiar files and business applications to work in the new environment, not just a successful data copy.