Email Objects That Don’t Migrate to Office 365 and Easy Workarounds

All mailboxes are not created equal. Do you know which email objects don’t migrate to Office 365?

If you’re planning an Office 365 migration, you’re focused on migrating everything over correctly. But it’s just as important to plan for what you can’t migrate.

Due to API limitations, you can’t migrate some features between mailboxes. Here’s a list of email objects that don’t migrate to Office 365 and workarounds to avoid them.

Migrating Calendar Objects to Office 365

Certain calendar notifications such as invitations and cancellations can’t be migrated. Here are other objects you’ll need to plan for:

• Calendar permissions. Typically, calendar permissions won’t migrate. However, if the Active Directory UPN prefix matches the account with calendar permissions prior to submitting a migration, then you can migrate calendar permissions. If no matching destination account exists, calendar permissions won’t migrate.
• Exceptions for recurring meetings. If users have updated recurring meetings or removed them from the series, these meetings won’t transfer to Office 365. However, you can’t migrate any modified description text or updated attendee list in recurring meetings. Individual, customized events in a recurring series also won’t migrate over.
• Acceptance status. Recently send a meeting invite? Meeting responses (accepted, declined or tentative) don’t migrate to Office 365.
• If you are migrating from Exchange 2003, BCC recipients for appointments can’t be transferred over.

Migrating Distribution Lists to Office 365

Known as “Contact Groups” in Office 365, server-based and dynamic distribution lists don’t migrate to Office 365.

Dynamic distribution lists (DDLs) are groups built on conditions and filters defined through PowerShell scripts or the Exchange Management console. DDLs use conditions to query Active Directory and create lists of users that receive a message.

You can handle DDLs a few different ways when migrating to Office 365.

You can export the group list by running a script or obtain the DDL queries from Active Directory Users and Computers Snap in. Once you have the list, you can create the new DDLs in Office 365 via PowerShell. Find step-by-step instructions to migrate DDLs here.

Google G Suite Email Objects That Don’t Migrate to Office 365

If you’re migrating from Google’s G Suite to Office 365, the following won’t migrate:

• Calendar attachments, reminders and some calendar colors. All color category metatags transfer over, but Office 365 does not have direct color mappings from Google. Certain colors won’t map over or display in Office 365 calendar entries.
• Chat and chat history.
• Google Groups for Business. This includes forums and collaborative inboxes.
• Google Categories. Also known as the Google category flags, these include Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums.
• Email attachments linked to Google Drive.
• Google labels. Google’s email labels cannot be translated to folder names.

Additional Email Objects That Don’t Migrate to Office 365

• Items that don’t match folder types. These include items such as calendar responses within a mail folder.
• Items that aren’t true emails. Contacts, calendars, journals, mail, notes or other tasks don’t migrate to Office 365.
• InfoPath forms.
• Custom items. You can’t migrate items not included in the core system. These include journals, mail, notes or other non-mail items.
• Mailbox settings. Mailbox settings including aliases, sharing settings, default fonts, delegates and client settings cannot migrate.
• Outlook Quick Steps don’t transfer to Office 365.
• Client-side rules. You can’t activate client-only rules until the user who created the original client rules logs into the Outlook client with the same profile used to create the rule.
• Linked mailboxes.

Want more Office 365 migration help? Here are a few other resources:

• Your Guide to Office 365 Mobile Setup and Mobile Device Management
• Estimate Your Office 365 Migration Cost: 7 Critical Pricing Factors
• What’s the Difference Between a Staged & Cutover Office 365 Migration? 

You’re migrating to Office 365. But what next? 

An Office 365 migration will only take you so far. How will you secure this environment, optimize costs and help users extract the most business value? At Agile IT, we not only have a 100 percent cloud migration success rate, we also help companies manage their new cloud environment and get more from their investment. Need help migrating to Office 365? Or interested in learning more about our Office 365 consulting services? Schedule a call today to discuss your Office 365 goals.