For most email migration projects there will be at least one critical day, that can be the “make or break” day for the whole project.
This section provides guidance on what to do on these days to prepare yourself.
Critical Day 1 – Internet Mail Routing: The first critical day is normally the day after the internet email routing for inbound email is changed from the legacy email system onto Microsoft Exchange. This is the most common precursor to any email migration. Changing the internet email routing is a highly visible change if it fails, and still retains a lesser visibility if it succeeds. Often, the impact is overlooked.
By routing inbound email via Microsoft Exchange, which then relays it onto the legacy email system, it is common for the email formatting to be affected. An example encountered for GroupWise migrations is the loss of HTML formatting in emails, and the occasional loss of email header information — such as the “From” field. You need to be aware of these issues from your lab testing, and you need to communicate information to your users, to set expectations. Senior management need to be informed that this step is necessary in order to carry out the email migration, even though it appears to be a backward step in terms of functionality. Most businesses will leave a time gap after internet email cutover and any actual migrations, in case they need to roll-back the change.
Your lab testing cannot be 100% exhaustive, and I have seen internet email routing changes break BizTalk applications that relay on processing inbound internet emails in a particular format — which is altered by the routing change.
Therefore, you need to agree with the business that you will get a time period to remediate any problems encountered, rather than rolling back the change.
Always impress upon the business that if there is a problem then roll-back may not be the only option. Roll-forward can also be an option to remove the problem.
The best day for an internet email routing change is Friday evening, as it allows for business testing over the weekend.
Technically you are advised to ensure that a “catch all” SMTP mail relay mechanism is in place in your new email system, to ensure any email that it cannot process is relayed onto the legacy email system. This way you can be confident that you have minimised the risk of email not being delivered.
Critical Day 2 – Mail Migration: The second critical day is normally the Monday after the weekend migration of the bulk of the user mailboxes. This is the day you and your team will not be looking forward to, as it has the potential to be very busy and very stressful !
Prepare the Helpdesk with all the information they need to resolve common user issues. Examples of these are listed at the end of this section.
Utilise a team of skilled people to actively walk around the floors where the user’s are, to assist with any email-related problems or questions. Provide these staff a brightly coloured t-shirt with “Outlook Team” on them! This will reduce the load on the Helpdesk. A tip here is to involve business users in this role, as other user’s will feel more comfortable having their peers helping them.
Get in early, before normal users start their day. That way, you have the opportunity to tackle issues before you get swamped with support issues.
Have the system mailbox on your screen – from which you send a company-wide email with Delivery and Read Receipt enabled — see Migration Approach section for details. This will enable you to track how many users have successfully entered Outlook.
Check on key users early. Dedicate your best Support Staff to visit any key Managers and Personal Assistants to ensure they are using Outlook and are happy.
Helpdesk – Common User Issues:
Outlook is not working. Check the MAPI Profile – it may need creating manually.
I am not receiving any mail – get the user to send a mail to themselves. Check MAPI Profile, they may be running Outlook in offline mode. You may need to get the user to login to OWA to take the pressure off. It is a good idea to present an OWA link on the Intranet for this reason.
My old emails are missing. Similar to above, the user may be running Outlook in offline mode. Try and ensure users can access their old mailbox somehow, for a period after migration. This takes the pressure off resolving any missing emails, as users can refer back to their previous mailbox for reference purposes. Having the old mailbox present is also important as a possible rollback option. Looks good in the Risk Management Plan as well.
Windows Startup Group. Check for legacy email clients in the Windows Start-up Group – this can cause Outlook MAPI problems.
Missing emails from Inbox. You may encounter this when migrating off GroupWise onto Exchange. GroupWise allows the user to specify any folder as their Inbox. When migrated across, this folder is migrated as a normal Private Folder, not their Inbox, which will be empty. Easily resolved if you know what the problem is.
