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

Provision Accounts

It is required that target accounts and objects are provisioned before the migration can begin. User accounts must also be licensed.

Standard Project Type:

  • User account provisioning to be performed by Transend (upon request) or by customer.
  • Non-user objects (Advanced Provisioning) to be performed by customer.

Advanced Project Type: Transend to perform supported provisioning, as defined in the Project Plan.

Important: Any email address that sends or receives mail in the source platform must be provisioned in the target platform to ensure it continues to send/receive mail after the cutover.

Key Terms

Provisioning: the process of creating objects and properties in the target platform that receive mail or are related to mail delivery. Examples include but are not limited to:

  • User mailboxes
  • Shared mailboxes (M365 only)
  • Email aliases
  • Groups / Distribution lists
  • Domain or shared contacts
  • Resources (rooms, equipment)

User List: the list of mailboxes (and drives, if necessary) in the migration scope. The user list is finalized during the project’s Setup phase.

User mailbox v Shared mailbox…what’s the difference? Microsoft 365 includes both User mailboxes and Shared mailboxes. Understand the differences to determine what might be most appropriate for your new envieonment.

Supplemental User List: mailboxes (and/or drives) that need to be migrated but were not defined in the original (primary) 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: any 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.

Provision User Accounts (Required)

User accounts must be provisioned in the target platform before data can be migrated from the source account. From a migration perspective, this means every mailbox defined in the User List and Supplemental User List must exist in the target platform before data can be migrated. However, out-of-scope mailboxes also need to be provisioned in the target platform if their function in the source platform must be retained in the target platform.

Provisioning activities performed by Transend are specifically defined in the Project Plan, if applicable. Any required provisioning not defined as a Transend deliverable in the Project Plan is a Customer deliverable.

  1. Create user accounts in the target platform with the primary domain in the email address.

  2. Assign a license (that includes email) to user accounts.

    Note: If Microsoft 365 is your target platform, ensure the license you assign includes enough storage for each source mailbox. Microsoft 365 licenses provide either 50 GB or 100 GB of storage.

    See Plans & Pricing for guidance.

  3. If necessary, add email aliases to each account that requires them. Aliases are alternate email addresses at which a user might also receive email (for example: [email protected] and [email protected]).

Non-user Objects (Optional)

  1. If necessary, create Groups / Distribution Lists, Aliases, Shared mailboxes, etc. in the target prior to cutover.

  2. If necessary, create any system mailboxes that might be shared by multiple users (for example: [email protected], [email protected]) in the target prior to cutover. Assign appropriate membership to those system mailboxes.

  3. If necessary, create Rooms & Resources in the target prior to migration.

Shared Drives or Document Libraries (Optional)

  1. Create *Microsoft 365 SharePoint site document libraries or Google Shared Drives prior to migration.