Our experience on email migration projects has helped our team cultivate a strong set of core specialties. One key aspect of a successful email migration is ensuring all your staff have the training required to support and enjoy your new email platform.

Unfortunately, this area of a project can often go overlooked, bringing with it a whole host of issues. No matter how smooth the transition goes in migrating your email platform, if your technical team are unable to work with the new system your efforts could be for naught. So what is the importance of training with the specialists at Email Migrations?

Should I train my staff myself?

To get the most out of your training, it’s imperative that the specialist you choose has extensive knowledge in all areas of the migration process. A common scenario will involve an external consultant performing the email migration, while the existing technical team manages the legacy email system until the new platform is handed over.

This can often cause a sense of discontent within the support team, perhaps leaving them feeling undervalued or excluded from the project. Our experience with technical training can help alleviate this feeling amongst your support team, and provide them with the knowledge to help manage the new email system upon completion.

By training your support team as the migration commences, they will feel more involved in the project itself and retain the feeling of value knowing they are solely responsible for managing the new system.

Should I train a member of my team on the migration software?

It is our opinion that you should not be training any staff on the software you might be using for your email migration project. There are a number of reasons for this, but at the heart of the matter it comes down to expertise.

While your support team is perfectly adept at providing technical support for your current email system, a common mistake is entrusting the migration project itself to a single member of the technical team. If the employee you’ve entrusted with the matter falls ill or decides to leave the company, your project is stalled and even further training will be required.

Additionally, your support team should be focusing on the legacy email system and preparing for the transition, not juggling the responsibilities and timeline requirements of ensuring the migration occurs successfully.

What is the ideal training for my support team?

As with every specialisation, the best person for the job is the one who combines both knowledge and experience. Any technical employee can be trained to use email migration software, however no amount of training can replace the benefit of experience.

To avoid internal conflict, the ideal training for your support team will be conducted by an external migrations specialist and focus on the support for your new email system.

Our specialists offer support training for any email platform, including Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, Exchange 2016, Domino, GroupWise, Office 365 and more.

A training example with Email Migrations

Below we’ve listed a few aspects of a standard email migration scenario, highlighting the many areas we can deliver specific training to all levels of your staff.

This brings together our technical, consultancy and training expertise to ensure your migration goes off without a hitch.

• Planning – Creating a project plan and deciding on a rapid or extended migration.
• Technical documentation – Developing an email migration strategy that can be understood by all levels of the business. This means nobody is kept in the dark about what will be taking place.
• Communications – Ensuring the end-users have the right information during the project. This may cover user expectation of the new system, along with changes such as email formatting or attachment handling. Our team can help you choose the most effective method to deliver this.
• Project success –  Confirming that 95 per cent of users are successfully using their new email client and can both send and receive internal and external email on the first day post-migration. Our training can confirm your support team has the skills to help maintain this result.
• Post-migration – Providing training to senior management on roll-back planning in the event of a serious issue, alongside risk management, an overview of the migration and training that may be needed in future.

We can provide assistance on all aspects of the migration project, from inception to completion. With our expertise and knowledge in every area email migration projects, the team at Email Migrations are the specialists you need.