Comm. #3 | Migrating to Microsoft - Everything You Want to Know

August 2nd, 2024

Dear CEP Colleagues,

Thank you for your enthusiasm regarding the migration. We’re expediting the next communication to try and answer questions you’ve brought up.

Emails:

Emails & Labels / Your Email Classification: Migrated✅
Google uses labels while Outlook uses folders. Each label will be converted into a folder. An email with multiple labels will be copied into each corresponding folder, disrupting as little as possible the current organisation of your inbox.

Please remember that all client-related documents should be saved on Egnyte. Good news: you will be able to drag and drop emails from Outlook directly into Egnyte (without having to print to pdf).

Out-of-office Messages: Not migrated ❌
You will have to create your OoO message in Outlook using these steps.

Signature: Not migrated ❌
You will have to copy-paste your signature manually using these steps. NB: The Marketing team has provided a reminder of our branding to use in our signatures at the bottom of this email. (For those who remember, there used to be a quick tool to create your signature. We are hoping to bring it back to life as soon as we have a bit of time.)

Inbox Rules: Not migrated ❌
Rules direct incoming emails. For example, you could set all emails from a specific person to be directed into Folder ABC instead of your general Inbox. Here is a Microsoft article on how to create rules.

Calendar and Meetings: Migrated but require action ✅❌❕

Calendar Events:

All calendar events and their visibility (private or public) will be migrated. However, not all events will not be editable from Outlook. Organizers can make changes, such as switching from Google Meet to Microsoft Teams. But for bigger changes, it would be advisable to recreate an event and delete the old one. Here’s a short Microsoft article on how to Schedule events in Outlook.

Microsoft Teams – Meetings and Rooms:
Here’s an excellent quick-video form Microsoft on how to prepare or join a virtual meeting on Microsoft Teams: Get started with meetings.

In a future communication, we will indicate how to add an in-person conference room and how to login to these conference rooms using Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Auto-Decline Invites:

This feature doesn't exist in Microsoft yet. You can go vote for this idea to be developed here.

Tips & Tricks on the Outlook Calendar Invite Screen:

- You can indicate if a person’s presence at a meeting is optional

- You can determine the visibility of the event’s details in your calendar: private/public

- You can indicate if you appear busy or available during an event in your calendar. This influences your availability when someone uses “Find a Time” to meet with you.

- You can add a Teams meeting link.

- You may have noticed the Salesforce icon on my screen. We’ll provide more information in a future communication on how to integrate Salesforce with your calendar events and emails.

Tasks: Not migrated ❌

In Microsoft, individual tasks are managed in To-Do. Here is a Microsoft article on how to use Microsoft To-Do.

Contacts: Migrated✅

Up to 3 email addresses per contact will be migrated. Any more than 3 will not.

Drives:

Personal Google Drive: Migrated but require action ✅ ❌ ❕

✅ All Google Drive files will be migrated to OneDrive. We will contact users for whom the transfer fails (e.g., due to large file sizes or unsupported file types). As a reminder, the use of personal drives such as Google Drive and OneDrive should be kept to a minimum.

❌ Shared links will not be migrated. If you are looking for files that were shared with you from someone else’s personal Google Drive, you can review who is the owner by looking into your still-available Google Drive. We recommend these files should be manually moved to Egnyte as soon as possible.

Shared Google Drive:

✅ CEP Mail Export will be migrated.

❌ Any other shared drives will be migrated upon request.

Favorites: Migrated✅

Chrome Bookmarks will be migrated into Edge Favorites.

Passwords: Migrated✅

Chrome Passwords will be migrated into Microsoft Passwords.

Checklists: Not migrated ❌

Google Keep will not be migrated. Various Microsoft tools can replace Keep including OneNote, Planner, Loop and To-Do. We are hoping to get your feedback regarding which one we should recommend.

Chats: Not migrated ❌ There are exceptions ❕

❌ Google Spaces, due to the complexity of their migration, will not be migrated.

✅ A few selected Google Spaces, identified as very important, will be migrated.

Microsoft has a myriad of apps and functionalities. We are starting with the most important ones. Building on the experience we will develop, we intend to gradually support more, and optimize our use. Initially, for one, Copilot will not be active. We are starting some testing to know if we could use it, but don’t expect it in the short-term.

A few users have asked if it would be possible to move the migration of their account to a date that is more aligned with their vacations. Although we empathize with this situation and understand it is inconvenient, for technical reasons, we cannot migrate accounts at different times. The reason is that we need to tell the systems where to direct emails and all integrations (e.g., with Salesforce). There is no option to point to two places simultaneously (e.g., Gmail and Outlook). It’s unfortunately one or the other, not both.

Topics of a future communication:

How to use Microsoft Teams Rooms.

How to use the Salesforce for Outlook add-in.

When to meet for training/Q&A meetings.

I hope this communication brings clarity. Please know we are here for your questions and thank you again for all the positivity you have sent our way since yesterday!

Your IT Team