SharePoint Migration Strategy + Free Excel Plan Template

Moving your organization off legacy sites and file shares is more than a copy-and-paste job. Without a clear SharePoint Migration Strategy, you risk broken links, lost permissions, and frustrated users who cannot find what they need. In this guide, we break down a practical, step-by-step approach you can use to plan, schedule, and govern every migration wave.

You will also get a free reusable Excel migration plan template to track inventory, owners, and cutover tasks in one place. Use it alongside your SharePoint Online Migration Checklist to turn a complex move into an organized upgrade for your entire digital workplace. Whether you are moving from SharePoint 2013, 2016, 2019, or file servers, the same principles apply.

Why You Need a Well-Defined SharePoint Migration Strategy

A structured SharePoint Migration Strategy is more than a project plan. It is how you protect your organization from running on aging, risky infrastructure while giving employees a better way to work. Many organizations still depend on older on-premises farms such as SharePoint 2013, 2016, or 2019, even though the lifecycle clock is ticking.

SharePoint Server 2013 has already reached the end of extended support and Microsoft has confirmed that SharePoint Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019 will exit extended support on July 14, 2026. This end-of-life timeline for SharePoint 2013, 2016, and 2019 (SharePoint 2013 End of Life, SharePoint 2016 End of Life, and SharePoint 2019 End of Life) is more than a licensing milestone. Recent security research has documented real-world attacks that specifically target unpatched, self-hosted SharePoint servers as an easy way into corporate networks.

Staying on unsupported platforms increases your exposure to data breaches, compliance findings, and unplanned downtime. A clear strategy sets deadlines for retiring high-risk environments and moving them to supported platforms such as SharePoint Online.

There is also a productivity cost to leaving things as they are. Classic sites, legacy SharePoint workflow engines, and heavily customized pages often feel slow and inconsistent compared to modern SharePoint Online.

The gap between SharePoint Classic vs Modern experiences becomes obvious when users expect frictionless access across Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Treating this as a simple “file copy” from SharePoint Online vs On Premise misses the opportunity to redesign information architecture, clean up old content, and standardize security and sharing policies.

Microsoft’s migration guidance shows that successful moves follow a repeatable pattern: planning, assessing and remediating your current environment, preparing the target, migrating in batches, and onboarding users. A well-defined SharePoint Migration Strategy brings those phases together.

It gives you a roadmap, clear ownership, and a governance model that continues after the last batch is migrated. With that in place, you are not just getting off an old version; you are building a modern digital workplace that is easier to secure, support, and grow.

Key Considerations Before Starting Your Migration

Before you execute any SharePoint Migration Strategy, take time to understand what you are moving, why you are moving it, and where it should land. A little planning at this stage will save you from rework, broken permissions, and unhappy users later.

1. Start with Business Goals and Scope

Clarify which problems you expect the move to solve: retiring aging farms, improving search, tightening security, or supporting hybrid work.

Decide whether your end state is fully cloud, a SharePoint Online vs On Premise hybrid model, or a staged path where you first migrate from SharePoint 2019 to SharePoint Online for a few departments and expand from there.

2. Next, Inventory – Your Current Environment

List farms, site collections, and file shares, then classify content as critical, useful, or ready for archive. This is where a SharePoint Online Migration Checklist and a simple Excel tracker work well together.

Capture sizes, last modified dates, and ownership so you can prioritize high-value sites and clean up ROT content before it ever reaches the cloud.

3. Look Closely at Customizations and Automation

Identify classic publishing pages, InfoPath forms, and every SharePoint workflow that supports a live business process. Some of these will need to be rebuilt in Power Automate or Power Apps.

Others can be retired. Your decisions here affect timelines, licensing, and how quickly teams can adopt modern SharePoint features, especially as SharePoint Classic End of Life approaches in many environments.

4. Finally, Think About Governance, Security, and Adoption

Agree on how new sites will be requested and approved, how external sharing will work, and who is responsible for each hub or department. Build a communication and training plan that introduces users to modern experiences like hubs, Microsoft Teams integration, and improved search.

When these considerations are documented up front, your SharePoint Migration Strategy becomes a realistic roadmap rather than a wish list.

Step-by-Step SharePoint Migration Strategy (with Free Excel Template)

A good SharePoint Migration Strategy follows clear, repeatable steps. Microsoft’s own migration guides describe a series of phases: plan, assess and remediate, prepare the target, migrate, and onboard users.

Your free Excel migration plan template becomes the place where each step is tracked, assigned, and measured.

1. Confirm Goals and Scope

Start by documenting why you are moving. Common goals include retiring older servers that are approaching end of support (for example, 2016 or 2019), consolidating multiple farms, or improving security and collaboration in Microsoft 365.

Capture which farms, site collections, and file shares are in scope, including any plans to Migrate from SharePoint 2019 to SharePoint Online in stages.

2. Run Discovery and Assessment

Use tools such as the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT) to scan existing farms and highlight potential issues before you move anything.

Record inventory details in your Excel sheet: URLs, owners, sizes, last modified dates, and customizations. This work pairs well with a SharePoint Online Migration Checklist so you do not miss hidden subsites, lists, or external sharing links.

3. Classify and Clean Up Content

Apply a simple ROT lens (redundant, outdated, trivial). Decide which sites and libraries will be migrated, archived, or removed. Real-world SharePoint Case Studies show that projects which remove old content up front tend to have fewer performance and search issues later. Use your template to track decisions and approvals from business owners.

4. Design the Target Environment

Clarify what your end state should look like: fully in SharePoint Online, a hybrid model, or a smaller on-premises footprint. Plan hub sites, modern team and communication sites, metadata, and a security model that fits how your business works.

If you are moving away from classic experiences and planning for SharePoint Classic End of Life, treat it as an opportunity to redesign navigation and branding instead of copying old structures one-to-one.

5. Plan Workflow and Customization Modernization

Identify every InfoPath form, classic page, and SharePoint workflow that supports a live process. Microsoft now encourages customers to move legacy workflows into Power Automate, and some migration tools can help with that transition. Use a dedicated tab in the Excel plan to track which processes will be rebuilt, which can be retired, and who owns testing.

6. Select Migration Tools and Methods

Choose tooling based on scale and requirements. The free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) can move content from on-premises SharePoint and file shares into SharePoint Online and OneDrive.

Third-party tools may add richer reporting, scheduling, or tenant-to-tenant options. For each site or batch, record in the template which tool you will use, what credentials are required, and whether the move is cutover or staged.

7. Pilot, then Migrate in Waves

Start with a small pilot that reflects real-world complexity. Use the Excel file to define pilot scope, content freeze windows, test cases, and sign-offs.

Once the pilot is stable, group remaining sites into waves by region, department, or risk. Many migration checklists follow a pattern of assess, clean, plan, test, migrate, validate, and adopt. Reflect those stages as columns or statuses so everyone can see progress at a glance.

8. Validate, Onboard, and Optimize

After each wave, compare item counts, permissions, and key scenarios between source and target. Capture defects and fixes in the same workbook.

Then focus on user training and adoption: modern pages, improved search, integration with Teams, and updated security practices. This is where your SharePoint Migration Strategy stops being “a project” and becomes the new normal for how teams collaborate in the cloud.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid During SharePoint Migration

Even a well-planned SharePoint migration can run into trouble if a few recurring issues are ignored. These are the problems teams see most often and simple ways to stay ahead of them.

1. Treating Migration as a Pure File Copy

If the project is framed as “move everything from the old farm into the new one,” you bring clutter, duplicates, and bad folder habits into SharePoint Online. Use your inventory and migration plan to archive ROT content and tidy up navigation, instead of copying every site one-to-one.

2. Skipping Discovery and Clean-up

Some projects jump straight into tooling without a complete view of what exists. That is when “forgotten” subsites, orphaned lists, and mysterious permissions show up after go-live.

A simple SharePoint Online Migration Checklist, paired with your Excel tracker, keeps you honest about which sites exist, who owns them, and what depends on them.

3. Ignoring Customizations and Workflows

Classic web parts, InfoPath forms, and older SharePoint workflow engines often behave differently in modern sites or in the cloud.

If you do not catalogue these early, business processes can quietly break on day one. Track each workflow and form in its own tab and decide whether it will be rebuilt, replaced with Power Automate, or retired.

4. Underestimating Permissions and Security

Complex item-level permissions slow migration tools and create confusing access patterns afterward. It is common to discover that external users or former contractors still have access they should have lost years ago.

Use the migration plan to review owners, groups, and sensitivity for each site so the new environment starts with a clean, intentional access model.

5. Running a Big-bang Cutover with No Pilot

Going straight from planning to a full production cutover usually leads to late nights and unhappy stakeholders. If you look at real-world SharePoint Case Studies, most successful teams run a small but realistic pilot, capture lessons learned, and then scale to larger waves. Give the pilot its own wave in your Excel plan and treat it like a dress rehearsal.

6. Overlooking User Experience and Change Management

Moving from classic to modern experiences changes how pages look, how navigation works, and how sites integrate with Teams. If the only message users see is “your site is moving this weekend,” expect a spike in tickets.

Add training sessions, FAQs, and quick reference guides as tasks in your plan, especially for high-visibility departments where SharePoint Classic vs Modern changes will be most visible.

7. Leaving Legacy Servers Running “Just in Case”

Older environments that are already at or near end of life, such as SharePoint 2013, 2016, or 2019, often linger in read-only mode long after migration.

Over time, they drift back into daily use and remain a security and compliance risk. Include firm decommission dates in your roadmap and link them to clear checkpoints in your SharePoint Migration Strategy.

When these pitfalls are explicitly listed in your migration workbook, with owners and due dates against each one, your SharePoint Migration Strategy becomes more predictable and much easier to defend in front of leadership.

Best Practices for a Smooth SharePoint Migration

These best practices turn your SharePoint Migration Strategy from a one-time project into a repeatable way of working.

1. Start with Business Outcomes, Not Tools

Tie every decision to a clear business result: retiring unsupported servers, improving compliance reporting, or reducing time to find documents. When stakeholders agree on outcomes, it is easier to prioritize waves, cut scope, and say no to “nice to have” requests.

2. Keep One Source of Truth for the Plan

Use the Excel migration template as the master plan. Treat it as the place where scope, waves, owners, risks, and status live. If something is not in the workbook, it is not in the project. This keeps meetings focused and removes confusion about which version of the plan is current.

3. Pair the Template with a Practical Migration Checklist

A simple SharePoint Online Migration Checklist makes sure every site or file share goes through the same steps: discovery, clean up, design, migration, validation, and decommissioning. Link those checklist stages to columns in the spreadsheet so you can see where each site sits in the journey.

4. Design for Search and Security, Not Just Storage

Think beyond “where do we put the files.” Spend time on information architecture, metadata, and permission models that match how people actually work. Consistent naming and classification improve search, reporting, and retention. They also make future audits much easier to handle.

5. Modernize Workflows as Part of the Move

Treat automation as a first-class workstream. As you catalog each existing SharePoint workflow or form, decide whether it should be rebuilt in Power Automate or Power Apps, or retired. Doing this in parallel with content migration prevents a backlog of broken processes after cutover.

6. Invest in Pilots and Champions

Choose departments that are open to change for your first waves. Give them extra support, capture their feedback, and ask them to act as champions for later groups. When other teams see peers using modern sites successfully, adoption moves faster than any email campaign.

7. Overcommunicate Timelines and Impact

Users care about three things: when their content moves, what will change, and who can help if something goes wrong. Publish timelines, short “what is changing” notes, and contact information well before each wave. Reinforce those messages in Teams, email, and town halls.

8. Plan for Life After Migration

A SharePoint migration is not finished when the last batch completes. Define how new sites will be requested and approved, how often you will review stale content, and how you will handle future changes in licensing or end of support. Building these rules into your SharePoint Migration Strategy keeps the new environment healthy over the long term.

Conclusion

A SharePoint migration is never just a weekend copy job. It touches security, compliance, user experience, and the way your teams work every day. A clear SharePoint Migration Strategy helps you line up business goals, inventory, information architecture, workflows, and change management so you are not reacting to issues after the fact.

When you capture that strategy in a simple Excel plan, it becomes easier to see what is in scope, who owns each site, which wave it belongs to, and what still needs testing or sign-off. The same template can support future clean-ups, tenant consolidations, or moves from newer on-premises versions to SharePoint Online.

If you take away one idea, make it this: treat your migration as a structured program, not a one-time task. With the right plan, checklist, and communication, the move becomes an opportunity to modernize how people find, share, and secure information, not just a change of storage location.

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FAQs

1. What is SharePoint migration?

It is the process of moving sites, content, and workflows from one SharePoint environment (or file shares) to another, most often from older on-premises farms into SharePoint Online in Microsoft 365.

2. What are the steps for SharePoint migration?

Typical steps are: define goals and scope, discover and inventory content, clean up and classify, design the target environment, choose tools, run a pilot, migrate in waves, validate, and decommission legacy systems.

3. What is the best migration tool for SharePoint?

There is no single best tool. Most teams start with Microsoft’s free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) and add third-party tools like ShareGate, AvePoint, or Quest when they need richer reporting or complex scenarios.

4. How long does a typical SharePoint migration take?

It depends on size and complexity. A small department move can finish in a few weeks, while multi-farm, multi-region migrations that include workflow modernization and change management often run for several months.