As organizations continue to shift towards more integrated and cloud-based solutions, the migration of distribution groups to Office 365 emerges as a vital task for IT admins and users who look to simplify communications and boost collaborative efforts. Our guide is made after full analysis by the experts and offers the practical steps to migrate distribution groups to Office 365.
We will see how to assess your current setup, use PowerShell commands for precise data mapping, and even help you with the most effective migration tool as per your specific needs. Get on with us as we get into the methodical approach for easy transition to Office 365 with zero disruptions.
What are distribution groups?
Distribution groups simplify email communication for defined recipient sets. These groups centralize email addresses for efficient information broadcasts. Also, global admins can configure groups to receive external emails (Mail-Enabled). For timely updates or announcements to specific users, distribution groups are quite valuable.
But Office 365 offers even more. Create user collections for collaboration, and automatically provision resources with the appropriate permissions. This eliminates the need for manual permission assignment and simplifies teamwork.
Migrate distribution groups to Office 365
When you look to migrate distribution groups to Office 365, EAC is the only manual approach to follow. But with the use of EAC, you can only migrate one distribution group at a time. In case you need migration capabilities for multiple distribution groups, you will have to use a few PowerShell scripts.
Let us first follow the steps under EAC.
- Access the Exchange Admin Centre and tap on Recipients. Click on Groups.
- Choose the distribution group you want to migrate to Office 365.
- Select the option Upgrade distribution group from the toolbar.
- Tap on Upgrade and let the process begin.
Keep in mind that when you migrate distribution groups to Office 365, it cannot be undone and is a permanent process.
Now, we will move onto the PowerShell commands to migrate distribution groups to office 365.
- When you want to migrate a single distribution group to Office 365, then execute this command.
Upgrade-DistributionGroup -DlIdentities
- When you want to migrate multiple distribution groups to Office 365, then use this command.
Upgrade-DistributionGroup -DlIdentities
To find out and migrate all the eligible distribution groups to Office 365, here is the PowerShell command to follow.
Get-EligibleDistributionGroupForMigration | Foreach-Object {Upgrade-DistributionGroup -DlIdentities $_.PrimarySMTPEmail }
Seems like a difficult process. Yes, you need a high-level of expertise with PowerShell when you want to migrate distribution groups to Office 365.
Apart from the expertise needed, there are a few limitations that you must know. You need to have global admin rights for this migration process. Also, you cannot migrate all the distribution groups. You can only migrate cloud-managed, simple, and non-nested distribution lists.
Moreover, if the distribution group has 100+ owners, then there would be high chances of failure in the distribution group to Office 365 migration.
Using professional utility
The above method is complicated and needs technical expertise, you also need to keep the limitations in check. Is there any other alternative that makes this migration easier?
Yes, you can look to opt for a professional utility like Recoveryfix Migration for Microsoft 365. This utility is well-known for its safest and quickest algorithms that makes your process easier and effective. Coming with advanced filters, no size limitations and migration reports available post-migration, this software is compatible with all plans of Microsoft 365.
Other features of the tool include incremental migration, convenient login methods and CSV file compatibility. To seek maximum benefits of this migration tool, you can look to use the trial version for free.
Last say
We have provided the best manual approach to migrate distribution groups to Office 365 in easy-to-follow steps. The steps are easy to follow but the process needs a bit of expertise as PowerShell is an intricate platform to master.
Keeping the complexities of the method aside, we advise you to get your hands on the Recoveryfix Office 365 migration tool that takes you away from the hassle of PowerShell commands and makes your migration tasks simple. Take the trial today and carry out the migration with ease.