Successful Methods to Migrate PST to Office 365 Platform

Windows Mac

No matter what email service you are using, email is the most effective and most common communication medium in the business world. Microsoft Outlook was perhaps the most dominant email client in the past, and still, it is one of the best email clients. These days large enterprises and blooming businesses are drawing attention to Office 365 due to its ability to drive productivity and corporate success. Around 80% of big companies have already migrated to cloud-based Office 365. Even small organizations are now switching to this cloud-based service due to its efficiency and productivity.

Microsoft Office 365

Many Office users still don’t know what exactly Microsoft Office 365 is! They often overlook or underrate the benefits that Office 365 caters to its users. If you think that Office 365 is just a classic Office product, then you are wrong. It’s not only a typical Office product that provides you Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, or any other classic service from the cloud. It also proposes some additional features to create an essential and strategic direction within the enterprise. 

• You get Exchange Online and SharePoint Online within Microsoft Office 365 for business. 
• In addition to that, it has applications like Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams for communication and collaboration purposes.
• It provides advanced security features, real-time communication, data analysis, social networks, project work, and much more. 

From a business point of view, Microsoft Office 365 is the best choice to keep business productivity to a maximum at a flexible and calculable cost. It is an excellent choice if you are planning to switch to a cloud-based platform from your dusty & old Outlook email client. 

What are the Benefits of Office 365? 

You might be interested in taking a look at Office 365 benefits:

• Since Office 365 is a cloud-based service, it allows you to work from anywhere on any device at any time. You do not need to sit at the desk all day long to access your organization’s emails and other data. This will make you more productive than before.
• You do not need to worry about your business data. The advanced security measures used by Office 365 take regular backups of your data.
• You can easily set up user profiles with Office 365 and manage them without any hassle. Once the setup process is completed, you can simply install the tools. This can be done by yourself, or you can take the help of the IT department.
• While using Office 365, it is straightforward to edit files, communicate with your team from anywhere, manage projects, etc.
• You can easily migrate to Microsoft Office 365, no matter what type of storage tools you are using. There is no need to migrate your data again, as Office 365 supports regular updates.
• Microsoft Office 365 provides you the data protection and backup services like DLP (data loss prevention) to avoid data loss situations. Microsoft always ensures data safety in Office 365. 
• The best part of using Office 365 is that it is always up-to-date. There is no need to wait long for the next product release. If you are using Office 365, you will receive regular updates and bug fixes as soon as they are available.

Microsoft Office 365 provides several advantages for businesses, from boosting collaborative abilities to improving business productivity. By using Office 365, your business data stays secure.

Switch to a Cloud-based Platform

If you are running a business, you should definitely consider switching to a cloud service like Office 365. By doing this, you can make your employees more productive, creative, and highly satisfied at work. Many organizations are still using outdated technology. Most of them believe that the platform they are using is good, and their employees are pretty familiar with it. Which becomes the core reason that they don’t want to switch to a new platform. 

Also, data migration to a new platform is always a complicated and time-consuming task. Business productivity is the primary concern for any small to medium-sized business. And if you switch to Office 365, you get a familiar Microsoft experience and outstanding features at a very affordable price.

Microsoft Office 365 provides larger email quotas, unlike Outlook data files, you can move all your business emails and other vital data from PST to Office 365 account. By migrating all your emails and other data to Office 365, you can access them from anywhere, no matter what device you are using.

How to Migrate PST to Office 365?

Many organizations that have recently switched to Office 365 do not know how to migrate business data to this cloud-based service. It is easy to switch to Office 365 cloud-based platform, but it is not easy to migrate data. How will you migrate your crucial emails and other business data from Microsoft Outlook to Office 365? If you have no idea how to do that, let me help you. To migrate PST to Office 365 account, you can use any of these two methods: 

• Network Upload Option
• Professional Solution

Although a professional PST to Office 365 migration tool is highly recommended to migrate emails from PST to Office 365, you should try the Network Upload option first. There is a built-in tool in Microsoft Office 365 that will help you to import PST files to Exchange Online. There are two different ways to do that, and I would explain the Network Upload Option here. 

Use Network Upload Option to Upload PST to Office 365

In this option, you need to upload the Outlook PST files over the network to a temporary Azure storage location. And then, you can import the PST files to your Office 365 mailboxes using the Office 365 Import service. Follow the step-by-step procedure, that I am explaining below to move emails from PST to Office 365: 

Step 1: Copy the SAS URL and then install Azure AzCopy

The SAS URL is a sequence of network URLs used to store the location of Azure in the Microsoft cloud. It also stores SAS (Shared Access Signature) key for your organization. The primary use of the SAS is to provide necessary permission to move your email messages from Outlook to the storage location of Azure. 

To successfully upload or transfer Outlook PST files, make sure you are using Azure AzCopy v5.0. And most importantly, you need to download the Azure AzCopy software from the “Upload files over the network” page. You need to follow the steps shown below:

1. To start the PST to Office 365 migration process, go to https://office.com.

2. There you need to sign in to Office 365 by using the credentials of an admin account.

3. On the Security & Compliance Center window of Office 365, click Data governance > Import > Go to the Import service.

4. On the Import PST files page, click the +New import job button.

Note: To create an import job, you need the appropriate permission to access the Import page in the Security & Compliance Center.

5. Now type a name for this PST import job. Click Next to continue the process. 

Note: Make sure you use lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores. Avoid using uppercase letters or including spaces in the name.

6. You will see a new dialog box, “Do you want to upload or ship your data.”
7. Choose Upload your data, and click Next to continue the process.

8. On the “Import Data” page, you will see two different options: Show network upload SAS URL and Download Azure AzCopy.

• By clicking the “Show network upload SAS URL” option, you will see the SAS URL. You can copy this URL somewhere so that you can access it later.
• When you click “Download Azure AzCopy,” this will start the downloading of Azure AzCopy. Click Run to install the AzCopy after the downloading process.

Step 2: Upload PST Files to Azure Storage Location

The AzCopy.exe tool is now ready to use. It will help you upload PST to Office 365. The Azure AzCopy tool can upload and store the PST files in an Azure storage location of the Microsoft cloud. To upload PST to Office 365, you must locate the files in a file server of your organization. Make sure that the PST file you upload to the Azure storage location is not larger than 20 GB. If you try to upload a PST file larger than 20 GB, it may affect the performance of importing PST files.

• First, open a command prompt on your computer and go to the directory where you have installed the AzCopy.exe tool. Note: If you have installed the AzCopy in the default location, go to

%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\AzCopy

• Now you need to run the following command to upload PST to Office 365.

AzCopy.exe /Source:<Location of PST files> /Dest:<SAS URL> /V:<Log file location> /Y

Refer to the below table to understand the parameters (used in the above command) and their values:

Parameter	Description
/Source:	This is the source directory in your organization that contains the PST files. Enter the value of all this parameter between double quotation marks (“x”).
/Dest:	This is the SAS URL that you copied earlier in step 1. Enter the value of all this parameter between double quotation marks (“x”).
/V:	This will output the verbose status messages into a log file. Enter the value of all this parameter between double quotation marks (“x”).
/S:	This is an optional switch. It specifies the recursive mode so that the AzCopy tool can copy PST files located in subfolders of the source directory (specified by the /Source: parameter).
/Y:	This is a highly required switch. It allows the use of write-only SAS tokens when you upload the PST files to the Azure storage location.

When you run the command, you will see the status messages that will show the progress of uploading PST files. Once the process gets completed, you will see a final status message that will show the total number of uploaded PST files.

Step 3: Create PST Import Mapping File

After uploading the PST files to the Azure storage location, the next step is creating a CSV (comma-separated value) file to specify into which user mailboxes the PST files will be imported. To create the PST import job in Office 365, you need the CSV file.

Step 4: Create Import Job in Office 365

In this step, you need to create the PST Import job in Office 365’s Import service. Once you create the job, Office 365 will start analyzing the data in PST files and allow you to filter the data.

1. First, go to https://office.com and sign in to Office 365 by using the credentials of an admin account.

2. On the Security & Compliance Center window of Office 365, click Data governance > Import > Go to the Import service.

3. On the Import PST files page, click the +New import job button.

Note: To create an import job, you need the appropriate permission to access the Import page in the Security & Compliance Center.

4. Now type a name for this PST import job. Click Next to continue the process.

Note: Make sure you use lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores. Avoid using uppercase letters or including spaces in the name.

5. A new dialog box “Do you want to upload or ship your data” will appear. Choose Upload your data, and click Next to continue the process.

6. On the Import data page, select both the options under Prepare the mapping file section “I’m done uploading my files, and I have access to the mapping file.” Then click Next.

8. A new dialog box “Select the mapping file” will appear. Here you need to select the mapping file that you have earlier in step 3.

9. The selected CSV file will be shown under the Mapping file name. Now click Validate to start checking the CSV file for errors.

10. To create a PST Import job, the CSV file will be validated successfully within some time. Note: If the validation fails, you should click the View log link to check the validation error report.

11. Read the terms and conditions and mark the checkbox after the completion of the PST mapping file process.

12. Finally, click Save to submit the job and close it after the creation of the job.

13. Now, you will see a status flyout page with a status of Analysis in progress, and the new import job will also get displayed in the list.

14. Now, click the Refresh icon to update the status information displayed in the Status column. And after the completion. Now you can import the data.

Note: To display the status flyout page, click the import job. On the status flyout page, you will get more detailed information about the import job, including the status of each PST file listed in the mapping file.

Step 5: Filter data and start the PST Import job

Once you have successfully created the import job, Microsoft Office 365 will analyze the data in PST files. The age of the items and different message types of the PST content gets identified during the analyzing process. The data will be ready to import after the analysis process. To import the data, you have two options: either you can import all the data stored in the PST files, or you can trim the data that you want to import by using the Setting filters.

1. Read the terms and conditions and mark the checkbox after the completion of the PST mapping file process.

2. Finally, click Save to submit the job and close it after the creation of the job.

Now, you will see a status flyout page with a status of

Analysis in progress and the new import job will also get displayed in the list.

3. Now, click the Refresh icon to update the status information displayed in the Status column. And after the completion. Now you can import the data.

There are two options:

1. Yes, I want to filter it before importing. 
2. No, I want to import everything. 

If you choose option A, you can trim the data that you want to import. You need to use the Setting filters to do that. And if you choose option B, you can simply click Import data to start the import job.

On the Import PST files page, you can see the status of the import job. Keep clicking the Refresh icon to update the status information displayed in the Status column.

Professional Solution to Migrate PST to Office 365

If you are looking for a quick and effortless way to migrate PST into Office 365, you should consider using a professional solution like the Sysinfo PST Converter tool. There are many vendors in the online marketplace that provide such professional solutions, and SysInfoTools is one of them. The Sysinfo PST Converter tool provided by SysInfoTools will help you to import PST to Office 365 mailbox without requiring any prior technical expertise. This tool also import PST file into Gmail, AOL, IMAP, Outlook Web App, etc. Even a non-technical user can use this software with ease and can successfully migrate all the emails and other data from PST to Office 365.

Conclusion

The blog has covered Microsoft Office 365 and its benefits in detail. Through this blog, we also learned why it is better to switch to a cloud-based platform like Office 365. I have shared a handy manual solution to migrate PST to Office 365 using the Network Upload option that does not require any 3rd party software. I hope you found it helpful.