Onboarding | Project Phases | Best Practices | Glossary of Key Terms

Glossary of Key Terms

It’s important you understand terminology that will be used throughout your project.

On this page: Each category below includes relevant key terms.

• General
• Setup
• Production
• Post-Production
• Platform Specific
  • Microsoft 365
  • GoDaddy 365
  • Google Workspace
  • IMAP

General

• Project phases – A sequence of events must be completed before the transition to the new platform.

• Tenant – An environment, platform or container for organizational items, such as user accounts, domains, subscriptions, etc.
  Examples: Microsoft 365, GoDaddy, Google Workspace.

• Source Tenant – The existing platform the customer sends/receives email from. This is generally the platform data is migrating from.

• Target Tenant – The platform data is migrating to. After the migration is completed, this is the platform where users will send/receive email. The target tenant must be set up before the migration can begin.

• User or End-user – The customer’s personnel who are included in the User List. Most often the term “User” or “End-user” includes the customer’s personnel who are not in communication with Transend during the project, but are being transitioned from one platform to another.

• Non-user objects – Objects or properties that can receive mail but are not User accounts that require a license. Examples include Groups, Distribution Lists, Rooms, Resources, Equipment, Shared mailboxes, Email aliases, Delegation properties, etc.

• Mailbox – Includes the following data types: Email, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks.

• Mailbox data types:

  • Email – Includes messages, folders and attachments.

  • Calendars – Include calendar items, usually defined as either meetings (which include attendees) and events (which do not include attendees). Meetings with attendees include the meeting organizer (the person who schedules the meeting) and the attendee (people who are invited to the meeting by the organizer).

  • Contacts – A name, e-mail, or other personal information that is stored in the address book.

  • Tasks – Email task management involves using your inbox to sort, organize, and create tasks. This includes assigning tasks to people, setting deadlines, and managing projects all through your email.

• User mailbox – A mailbox that generally belongs to a person and requires a license for an “active” user.

• Shared mailbox – A mailbox that does not have log-in credentials, does not require a license, and is generally accessed only by company administrators. Shared mailboxes are often used for former or “inactive” users because they allow the company to retain data without consuming a license. In Microsoft 365 a Shared mailbox is limited to 50 GB of storage and does not come with OneDrive storage. Shared mailboxes do not exist in Google Workspace.

• Service account mailbox – A mailbox that does not belong to a person, and usually services a purpose beyond simply receiving mail (authentication, mail forwarding, etc.).

• Groups – A collection of users and other groups used for email delivery or security purposes. Groups are often referred to as distribution lists.

• Files – Files or documents that are stored in a document library (i.e. Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc.). Not all projects include a File Migration in scope.

• Offline data migration – The migration of data that does not exist on a “Live” platform or tenant, and instead is in the form of a file type that can be transferred (i.e. through DropBox) and migrated from Transend’s migration farm. Examples of commonly seen files include PST, NSF, MBOX, EML.

• Migration farm – A network of machines (physical or virtual) where Transend installs its software. Transend generally sets up a dedicated Migration farm for each project in Amazon Web Services (AWS).

• Add-on Services – Unless specifically defined as included in your Agreement’s Scope of Work, Add-on Services are out of scope but can be performed by Transend for additional fees.

Setup

• Setup phase – The initial phase of your project when Transend is provided with the following: credentials to access to the Source and Target tenants, User List, DNS domain registrar (if necessary). The Setup phase is also when Transend confirms the Migration Project Plan, validates authentication of all users in scope and ensures the customer is prepared for the migration. Transend cannot begin the migration until the Setup phase is complete.

• Admin account – An account with administrative privileges to the source and/or target tenant that Transend requires to perform services. It’s preferred that customer creates a temporary admin account for Transend to use during the project, included with our own MFA phone number. Instructions how to set up Transend’s admin accounts are included in your Onboarding document.

• User List – The list of user accounts (mailboxes and/or drives) that are included in the migration. The User List is finalized during the project’s Setup phase. A User List template (for you to populate) is provided in the Files page of your project portal.

• Supplemental User List – Mailboxes (and/or drives) that need to be migrated but were not defined in the original User List. These mailboxes can be added to an additional user list that will be migrated as a Single-pass migration after the Cutover. Additional fees may apply if the total number of mailboxes exceeds the purchased amount, or multiple Supplemental User Lists are required.

• Out-of-scope mailboxes – Mailboxes that exist in the source platform but are not part of the User List or Supplemental User List. These are mailboxes for which data will not be migrated. The customer is responsible for provisioning any out-of-scope mailboxes that need to be provisioned in the target platform.

• Provisioning – The process of creating objects and properties in the target platform that receive mail or are related to mail delivery. Any email address that receives mail in the source platform must be provisioned in the target tenant to ensure it continues to receive mail after the Cutover.

  User provisioning encompasses both the creation of user objects and the population of user-object properties like email address aliases, forwarding addresses and delegation properties.

  Non-user object provisioning includes Groups, Distribution Lists, Rooms, Resources, Equipment, Shared mailboxes, Email aliases, Delegation properties.

• DNS domain – The customer’s domain that must be added to the target tenant in order to provision accounts in the target with the domain included in the email address. The domain is the portion of your email address that follows the @ symbol.

• DNS hosting registrar – The online registrar where the customer’s DNS records are hosted (i.e. GoDaddy, Network Solutions, CloudFlare, etc.). If Transend is to add a domain to the target platform or perform the Cutover it must have administrative access to the DNS hosting registrar.

Production

• Production phase – After Setup is complete, the project moves to the Production phase. This is when the Cutover is scheduled, data is migrated, and the Cutover is performed.

• Cutover – Updating mail routing so that all incoming mail to a domain is routed to the target platform. Cutovers are most often performed by updating DNS records, but can also be performed by re-configuring a Mail Transfer Agent, security gateway, spam filter, etc. Once the Cutover is performed, users are “live” in the target platform where all mail is sent/received from.

• Mailbox migration methodology – Transend’s mailbox migration methodologies are designed to ensure an efficient cutover, with an optimized user experience. As a result, we offer two default mailbox migration methodologies, Staged and Single-pass mailbox migrations.

• Staged migration – For most projects, this is the recommended migration methodology. The Staged migration is designed to ensure the most recent messages (sent/received within the last 12 months) are migrated to target mailboxes in advance of the Cutover (Stage-1). This ensures that after the cutover is performed and users first log into the target mailbox (just after the Cutover), email messages from the last 12 months are already there. Once the Cutover is performed, Transend then proceeds to migrate all remaining data from the source (Stage-2 and Stage-3).

  • Stage-1 – The migration of messages sent/received within the recent 12-month period (migrated pre-cutover).

  • Cutover – Update DNS records to change mail routing to target (Users “Go Live” in target).

  • Stage-2 -The migration of Calendars/Contacts/Tasks + Stage-1 delta/catch-up sync job (performed post-cutover).

  • Stage-3 – The migration of messages older than 12 months (performed post-cutover).

• Single-pass migration – The migration of all data after the Cutover is performed and users are live in the new platform. The benefit of the Single-pass migration is to ensure mail routing is updated as quickly as possible, so that users can begin working out of the new platform ASAP. The downside is that it takes longer for the migration to complete after users are “live” in the target platform.

• Custom mailbox migration – If you require a mailbox migration methodology that deviates from the default options (Staged, Single-pass), please contact your Project Manager during the Setup phase to understand options and additional fees.

Post-Production

• Managed Help Desk – The support offering provided to customers after their Cutover has been performed. Includes email and phone support related to general access and usage of the target platform, and troubleshooting/remediation of migrated data. Advanced project types include 2 weeks of Managed Help Desk, Standard project types include 1 week.

• Post-cutover configurations – If necessary, select applications and services might need to be reconfigured after your Cutover to ensure mail delivery to all required devices. Configuration of desktop applications (i.e. desktop Outlook client) and mobile devices is to be performed by the customer.

Platform Specific

The most common target tenants that Transend migrates data into are Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

Microsoft 365

• Microsoft 365 – A family of productivity, collaboration and cloud-based services. Includes Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams and a host of other products and services. “Office 365” was rebranded to “Microsoft 365” in 2020.

• Exchange – The back-end server that hosts email related data.

• Outlook – The email client (installed on local workstations) or accessed online (through a browser) that is used to view and access email data stored in an Exchange server, or another back-end server. “Outlook” should not be referred to as a source or target platform.

GoDaddy 365

• Entra admin center – Microsoft Entra ID is a cloud-based identity and access management solution. When migrating from GoDaddy 365, the Entra admin center provides administrator access that the GoDaddy admin center does not provide.

Google Workspace

• Google Workspace – A collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products. Collaboration services include Gmail, Google Drive, Meet and others. Gmail accounts associated with a Google Workspace subscription include the company’s domain in email addresses.

• Gmail – An email service that is included with Google Workspace subscriptions. Gmail provides a webmail interface, accessible through a web browser or mobile device. Gmail can be synchronized with a local Outlook client, although there are fidelity incompatibilities as Outlook is not officially supported by Google.

• Consumer Gmail – Personal Gmail accounts that are unmanaged and do not contain a company domain. All consumer Gmail accounts use the @gmail.com domain.

• Google Groups – Google Workspace includes two different types of groups. Groups (also referred to as Collaborative Inboxes) store data for which there is no API, precluding programmatic access or migration capabilities. Data stored in Google Groups or Collaborative Inboxes are out of scope.

  Traditional groups, which include a member list, act as distribution lists and are to be set up as part of the provisioning process.

IMAP

• IMAP protocol – Many older or legacy platforms support only the IMAP protocol. The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server. When migrating data via IMAP, only Email data (i.e. messages, folders attachments) is supported.

  Calendars, Contacts & Tasks can be supported via an export process that is performed by the customer in advance of Transend migrating the exported files to the target mailbox.