G Suite - Changing to a new domain & migrating users from office 365 - bit of a mess

[TwistedHelixis]

BTW I have also posted this on the Google forums but do normally find Edugeek a much better place for help & support.

 

I have just taken over a small primary school that are using both Office 365 and G Suite. Office 365 is setup on the schools main domain (.sch.uk) and is also the main email system. G Suite has been setup on some random domain (.org.uk). Also 80% of the staff are on Office 365 & 20% are on G Suite, what a mess.

 

I have been asked to move everyone to G Suite and I am just trying to get my head around the best way to move the G Suite domain to the correct domain and also move everyone over to G Suite.

 

Q1. Is my first step to add the correct domain to my G Suite domain. If so, do I do this as a Domain Alias or as another domain?

 

Q2. Would I be best moving the 20% of current G Suite users from G Suite to Office 365, then moving the G Suite domain and then moving all staff from Office 365 to G Suite, or would you recommend another course of action?

Edited March 5, 2019 by TwistedHelixis

[TronXP]

You need to add domain as another domain, then you can make it your primary domain. Here is a guide:

 

https://support.google.com/a/answer/7009324

[jthompson]

Not sure on exactly how you'd do this, but one thing I would say is give yourself plenty of time. Transferring the existing mail and other data may take a while, so you might have to be chew through the bulk of that in the background before orchestrating a switchover for users.

 

In terms of domains, it might be that you can register the sch.uk domain on Google ahead of time, but leave your sch.uk DNS directing email to O365 until you're ready to make the final switchover. In terms of it being a domain alias or a separate domain in G Suite, that depends on whether you want everyone to automatically have addresses with both domains.

 

The final switchover might be best done over a weekend, to avoid affecting a workday.

[PrimaryNetMan]

When I was in a similar situation I purchased a cheap throw away domain added it to O365. Added the schools main domain to G Suite, setup accounts & DNS so all incoming & outgoing mail went via G Suite. Then renamed the O365 accounts with the new throw away domain via Powershell. Meant staff had a fresh start with clean inboxes. All old email was available via O365 and dealt with power users who would need to migrate mail over on an individual basis.

[mavhc]

When did they add changing primary domain in Gsuite? Excellent news.

 

Add the domain in GSuite, set it as primary, sync all your users from AD, and passwords, so all the users are on GSuite with the correct domain (except the ones already using it)

 

https://support.google.com/a/answer/6003169 has all the steps

[TwistedHelixis]

One thing I have just noticed, if I get each user to import the 365 emails to G Mail themselves (its only a couple of clicks in G Mail ) there is a tick box to continue to import new emails for the next month. This is actually very handy as the staff could be given access to G Suite and use that but still receive emails from office 365, until I switch the MX records.

[TwistedHelixis]

When I was in a similar situation I purchased a cheap throw away domain added it to O365. Added the schools main domain to G Suite, setup accounts & DNS so all incoming & outgoing mail went via G Suite. Then renamed the O365 accounts with the new throw away domain via Powershell. Meant staff had a fresh start with clean inboxes. All old email was available via O365 and dealt with power users who would need to migrate mail over on an individual basis.

 

I was just thinking about this and don't think you needed a throw away domain. I currently am at the point where both 365 & G Suite are using the same domain, but have not switched the MX records yet so 365 is receiving the emails. When I have added all the users to G Suite I will simply point the MX record at G Suite but the users should still be able to access the old 365 emails.

[TwistedHelixis]

The final switchover might be best done over a weekend, to avoid affecting a workday.

 

lol I wish. I will send in the request to our LA (who control the schools external DNS) then at some random point in time I might get an email back saying it was done, although I will probably find out from my users before then, when I get lots of tickets about the email not working.

[jthompson]

Haha. Well then, book them in a couple of weeks in advance to do it on a Friday afternoon for you. You could possibly also set up Gmail to do dual delivery to O365? That would mean that O365 users would continue getting new emails even after any MX changes start to kick in. I managed to set that up to do dual delivery to our on-prem Exchange when we were migrating, so it's worth seeing if that's possible with O365.

[mavhc]

First thing I'd do is switch dns to someone else, I've used namecheap's freedns service for decades now

[TwistedHelixis]

Just about to switch the correct domain from secondary to primary.

 

If I have users in the current primary domain will switching this to being a secondary domain have any impact on those users? I would have thought not, but in the Google blurb it mentions making sure the users have an alias for the other domain so they can still log in, without any reference to why they say this. I am assuming if I still want those users to login under the second domain I can just ignore this, and all will be OK.

[mavhc]

https://support.google.com/a/answer/7502379?hl=en might help

[TwistedHelixis]

The following I am not understanding, or is counter to the way I think it works.

 

Your users will then sign in and receive email using your new domain name.

 

I do not want my users to sign in and use the new domain, I need them to still login under the old domain, which will be the secondary domain.

This is under, Changing your primary domain - https://support.google.com/a/answer/7009324

[mavhc]

The following I am not understanding, or is counter to the way I think it works.

 

 

 

I do not want my users to sign in and use the new domain, I need them to still login under the old domain, which will be the secondary domain.

This is under, Changing your primary domain - https://support.google.com/a/answer/7009324

 

Step 3 seems to imply that until you rename your users they can use their old usernames. Their username is their primary email address.

[TwistedHelixis]

I am just going to go with logic on this one and assume they do keep their original logins.

[Ceegac]

Hi

Did you manage to change your primary domain? We have migrated all our email to Gmail from our Exchange server & changed mail records so that Gmail is now dealing with all our email... however, it won't let us change primary domain. Apparently this is not available for education without phoning google - when calling google we can't seem to speak to anyone who knows anything about how this might be possible.

So now our email is working with our proper school domain, but on sign in everything still says 'managed by' the old domain (confusing for users & I suspect may have bigger implications!?)

If anyone has been through this I would love to hear how you managed!

Thanks

Gayle

[TwistedHelixis]

Did you manage to change your primary domain?

 

I believe I did, without needing to contact anyone. Wish I had taken some notes down at the time, sorry.

 

I have just checked the G Suite domain page, and the lower domain does have the option to make it Primary, although I'm not going to click it to see if it still lets me switch them.