Easymail migration to Office 365

[Edu-IT]

Here's how to log a service request. Contact Support for a technical issue - Office 365 for enterprises

 

Can ANYONE point me in the direction of any sort of solution? I have gone round and round on the web and cannot find anything of any use.

At what point do I tell my boss that I just can't do it?

When it gets to the point that it's taking up so much time, that you can't do anything else, I'd say. For the amount of time you've spent on this to do only a few mailboxes I'd say the price for a 3rd party to do it would be really appealing. And I am not undermining what you are doing either because you've got far in the process. I am just saying that you seem to have to work miracles in a small space of time and this is one of them jobs that isn't small. Plus, a 3rd party would probably have come across a ton of this stuff before so they'd just be able to storm through it.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Edu-IT

[witch]

There just HAS to be an obvious answer as to why they have failed and why I cant do the manual connection, even with an account that has shown that it migrates OK

I want to understand...

[witch]

What if I got everyone to use Outlook for their easymail - I've just done it for one of my accounts - would it be easy to migrate then?

I must admit I have had a look and cant really see how to do it

 

Could I set up their outlook - could they still access their email from the web so would they even have to know or see that I had done it?

Edited December 11, 2013 by witch

[foofighterjim]

@plexer and @Boredguy may already know the answer to this but as I understand it so far:

 

You have got the majority of your old (Easylink) accounts synced with your new accounts (O365) using IMAP. However you are now unable to connect the last couple of mailboxes manually even though all of the details are correct. Out of interest do you know the exact number of accounts that are currently synced? Could there be a hard limit of IMAP connections the Easymail server will allow?

Edited December 11, 2013 by foofighterjim

[plexer]

You could use outlook to do it, you'd setup outlook to connect to the existing easymail account and save all the emails in a local pst file and then connect to the office 365 account and upload all that mail.

 

Use Outlook to Move Data Between Accounts

 

Ben

[Boredguy]

*sniff* did suggest trying Outlook a few posts back *sniff*

 

I'd try connecting at least one of the troublesome accounts via outlook. You can also connect up multiple accounts so you have the IMAP connection to Easymail and the Office 365 account in one instanced and then use the Ctrl+Drag option to copy a few of the e-mails from Easymail to 365. If that works you can either do it en mass (since same technique should work for folders) or try PST method.

 

If either method still fails, hopefully the ticket you have open with Microsoft will be able to help as there should be no logical reason for the failure.

 

Oh and you can run Outlook and Webmail side by side without any issue... in fact out staff do that all the time as we limit Outlook to only being open on one workstation per user so if someone forgets to logout of Outlook in their office they have to use the OWA interface in their classroom. No-one would notice any difference if you were connected to their easymail account via Outlook for the purpose of the migration.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Boredguy

[witch]

*sniff* did suggest trying Outlook a few posts back *sniff*

 

I'd try connecting at least one of the troublesome accounts via outlook. You can also connect up multiple accounts so you have the IMAP connection to Easymail and the Office 365 account in one instanced and then use the Ctrl+Drag option to copy a few of the e-mails from Easymail to 365. If that works you can either do it en mass (since same technique should work for folders) or try PST method.

 

If either method still fails, hopefully the ticket you have open with Microsoft will be able to help as there should be no logical reason for the failure.

 

Oh and you can run Outlook and Webmail side by side without any issue... in fact out staff do that all the time as we limit Outlook to only being open on one workstation per user so if someone forgets to logout of Outlook in their office they have to use the OWA interface in their classroom. No-one would notice any difference if you were connected to their easymail account via Outlook for the purpose of the migration.

Yes, you did - but you were talking about it as a main solution and it seemed a bit long winded as I am only part-time and I thought there was a better and quicker way - I was sort of right . However, I am not even sure I will have time or frankly, can be bothered, to do all 16 accounts. I have no idea where the files would be saved and I am hoping @plexer's guide is as good as the ones he writes himself.

I don't think it is a numbers game as I have only successfully migrated 30 accounts. It is a few more than a "couple" that havent synced though

So if I did it via outlook it would only copy the files that were there, wouldnt it? It wouldnt be an ongoing thing like the migration?

Still confused of Dorset...

Edited December 11, 2013 by witch

[Boredguy]

I know you have limited time, but I would try a single account purely as a troubleshooting process. Yes it would not be an on-going migration but it neither would Plexer's PST method.

 

We have already confirmed that login details work for web access for both systems.

You have around 16 accounts that did not want to sync for a reason that is not very clear (thank you Microsoft) so trying to connect via Outlook to the easymail account can be used to rule out any configuration issues with those 16 accounts. It could be that they are not allowed IMAP access from the easymail admin settings.

 

If one of the problem accounts can connect to outlook, and you can manually copy a few e-mails over it can help narrow down the problem with the account using the main migration process.

 

It is possible that it does not like a specific folder in easymail. For example one of my Assistant Head's migrations failed twice because her Deleted Items folder was so full. I moved the e-mails out of her live account into a PST file, then her account migrated happily.

[witch]

I know you have limited time, but I would try a single account purely as a troubleshooting process. Yes it would not be an on-going migration but it neither would Plexer's PST method.

.

 

 

Perhaps I'll log on to them all and delete their deleted items - maybe that will help?

[witch]

I have just checked three of the failed accounts and they dont have many folders and no deleted items to speak of. No large emails - easymail won't have it anyway.

[Boredguy]

Did it allow you to connect to the account via Imap with outlook then?

[witch]

Did it allow you to connect to the account via Imap with outlook then?

Havent got that far yet. Dont know how to do it either. Have I had instructions? I am at the other school now, will look tomorrow.

[Boredguy]

Here is the instructions from the SWGfL for setting up outlook to connect to Easymail.

 

Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013 is the same process

SWGfL Electronic Service Interface

[witch]

No, sorry, I can set up outlook to connect to easymail - as I said, I had done that - what I dont know how to do yet, as I havent looked, is how to go from outlook to office 365

[Boredguy]

Ah, that's not too complex then.

In Outlook, File -> Add Account

Fill in the name, email address (in the form of the onmicrosoft.com one) and password. It should then try and autodiscover the Exchange server for your domain.

 

The reason for using the onmicrosoft one in this instance is purely a time saver, as the autodiscover for your proper domain needs adding by the SWGfL or your own DNS depending how you have it configured.... A quick fix is easier for you.

[witch]

TBH I dont even know what you mean by the onmicrosoft one and have no idea what it is. I know way back I was asked if I wanted to use my current one and I did, but what the other one is has gone from my brain if it was ever there

Without it being an ongoing migration, I'm not sure it is of much use - what would the users have to do before the easymail was turned off?

In other news....

I have just created three new email accounts for new staff

So, no emails, no files, nothing to get snarled up

they failed

I've had it now

Edited December 12, 2013 by witch

[plexer]

Witch: can we do a teamviewer session or something?

 

Bn

[witch]

Witch: can we do a teamviewer session or something?

 

Bn

 

That would be good. Maybe you will find something really stupid that I have done

Gotta go now though. See PM

I am here 07.30-10.30 tomorrow but can stay on a bit if necessary. Next week am here 07.30 Mon and Fri, and 11am Tue and Thur. Not anywhere except hospital Wed

[speckytecky]

The onmicrosoft account, if I remember correctly was my original one that set up as an A3 trial which has now expired. I now only have an A2 account and therefore no onmicrosoft one as far as I'm aware. Please keep me in the loop folks as I'm a light year behind @witch ! Only tried one migration so far and it reported succeeding but with errors - which was the fact that the folders didn't come across.

[Boredguy]

@speckytecky regarding the onmicrosoft.com address, when you created your tenancy, it would have given you an account in the form of [email protected]

This domain stays with the tenancy regardless of any extra domains you add, such as school.dorest.sch.uk, or school.co.uk

 

If you login to your Office 365 Admin centre and then click on domains, it will list all the domains that are associated with the tenancy... one of them will be the something.onmicrosoft.com.

Similarly if you go to the exchange admin page and select one of your users and click on the e-mail address option, it will show the primary domain and the @something.onmicrosoft.com, both of which will be received by the server and dropped into the users mail box.

It's a very handy method of trialling your 365 setup before you change your DNS entries over.

 

With regards to the error migrating the folders, did the message contain any further information?

 

 

Did a little search and came across a self migration guide on a rm.com site for staff to move their e-mails manually from Easymail to 365 using outlook clicky. There was also another was for the older @live e-mail system which says to create a "Sent Mail" folder within Easymail, and then copy any e-mails that was in the easymail outbox into this folder... now this might not be practical for lots of users, but maybe telling the migration process to ignore the outbox folder will cure some of the errors.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Boredguy

[Boredguy]

Ah, excluding folders can only be done via the powershell interface using the following example

New-MigrationBatch -Name JobNameHere -CSVData ([system.IO.File]::ReadAllBytes("C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\myusersfile.csv")) -SourceEndpoint MySavedEndpointNameFromUI -ExcludeFolders "Deleted Items","Junk Email","Outbox"

[witch]

But the three users I have just created have nothing in those folders - would they still be a problem?

 

Could I try the migration with our domain address and the on.microsoft address in place of one of them? (not sure which - as currently they are both the same) Which one would it be?

[Boredguy]

In the CSV file, the first e-mail address is the Office 365 one, so you could use the blah.onmicrosoft.com address in it's place. The second e-mail address is the username for Easymail so would need to be your normal domain still.

[plexer]

@Boredguy and anyone else who wants to chip in.

 

I'm looking at this for Witch at the moment but going forward I propose that she does the following any flaws so far?

 

Ensure all users have an Office 365 mailbox.

Users export their contacts to a csv where possible and import those into Office 365.

MX record is changed so that new email goes direct to the Office 365 mailboxes.

We continue to work on transferring over old emails and users can still log in to Easymail to check old emails if needed.

 

This would just stop the current easymail mailboxes getting any bigger.

 

Ben

[Boredguy]

Yep that sounds fine, just as long as the SWGfL does not disable easymail until notified (say end of Feb which gives 2 months to resolve any lingering e-mail transfer bugs)

 

Also means staff can start on the new system after the Christmas break and allows Witch 2 weeks of peace from it