BPOS Migration Services

If you were one of the early adopters of the original Microsoft cloud services offerings you know the value and economies of scale that the cloud brings to companies and government entities alike.

While the next version of the business cloud, Office 365, brings with it many improvements, it also brings some pain points. Primarily the fact that there is no automated upgrade or migration path from the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) to Office 365. This issue can be directly attributed to SharePoint Online.

BPOS was built around SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) and Office 365 has as its cornerstone the much improved platform, SharePoint 2010. The fundamental changes in the SharePoint structure are so profound that there simply is no direct, automated path for upgrade from one version to the next.

BPOS Transition Deadline

All transitions from the older BPOS system to Office 365 must be complete no later than September of 2012.  For most organizations it will be important to begin making the transition as soon as possible so that we can have adequate time to create the new site layout in SharePoint 2010 and thoroughly test and review the new deployment. Depending on the size of your organization, the technical savvy of your user population, and the complexity of your SharePoint deployment, It can also be helpful to migrate smaller blocks of users instead of an all at once approach. IT Systemantics can help you in creating and executing a plan that meets the needs of your business or government agency.

Custom Webparts, Dashboards, and Reports

If your SharePoint deployment takes advantage of any custom Webparts, Dashboards, Reports, Reporting Centers, etc. we will need to test them in the SharePoint Online 2010 / Office 365 environment before making your complete migration.

Many of these may in fact be compatible with the newer environment, but some will not. We can help you make these determinations, make the upgrades for you, or recreate the functionality inside of Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

The good news is that with the SharePoint Sandbox available in the 2010 version these types of customizations are easier to make inside of the cloud than ever before.

Custom Workflows

One of the greatest strengths of SharePoint is that we can capture almost any business logic inside of the system in the form of Workflows. SharePoint 2010 has made the use of Workflows easier to implement than ever before.

ITS can help you recreate your critical workflows inside of Office 365 or implement new ones for you based on your business needs.

How Much Does It Cost To Migrate From BPOS To Office 365?

The long answer to this depends on the complexity of your current BPOS setup and deployment. The short answer is that it really shouldn't cost very much to make the move. In order to give you an exact estimate of migration costs (if any) just contact us via the form on the right side of this page.

Many Migrations Can Be Made At Little To No Cost

For many customers with fairly straight forward SharePoint setups, especially those using only out of the box webparts and workflows we can handle your migration needs for free or at very little cost. We are able to do this because Microsoft provides us as partners with a small commission as your Partner of Record within the new Office 365. The best part of this program is that it in no way affects the price you pay for your subscriptions making this a win-win for customers, ITS, and even Microsoft.