Do you know over 60 million businesses across the globe are already using Microsoft 365 and 50,000 small and medium-sized businesses are migrating to Microsoft 365 every month?
Although migrating the IT infrastructure can be risky, Microsoft 365 is a proven and mature technology that provides enormous business profits. It is not just a productivity suite but it embraces the best of productivity, collaboration, and cloud service integration.
Most organizations find it difficult to move PST files as it can damage their systems, risk their data, and may violate their privacy. All the emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, and other important data stored in the Outlook folders in the system make up the PST file.
Migrating Outlook data from Personal Storage Files (.pst) is very challenging because of its storage mechanism and manual operational procedures. The challenge of importing PST to Microsoft 365 can manage by using a reliable migrator tool to migrate all the data including PST files securely to Microsoft 365. Now, let us understand the core benefits of migrating to Microsoft 365.
Benefits of Migrating to Microsoft 365
- Better Productivity and Collaboration – Microsoft 365 provides excellent collaboration features with the help of the latest tools and applications. It enables users to co-author documents, share secure links with external coordinators, and allow teams to collaborate in real time and work seamlessly. It also allows users to access earlier versions of documents with a version history feature.
- Effective Communication – The latest features include audio and video calling capabilities, allowing users to host online meetings, share screens, and collaborate on projects easily. The users can also chat with team members and share files in real time with Microsoft Teams.
- Enhanced Security and Governance – The users can add an extra layer of security with multi-factor authentication, prevent data loss with sensitivity labels and maintain compliance.
- Other privacy controls include blocking access to open Wi-Fi networks and using expiration dates for external shared links. Moreover, all data is encrypted and can be recovered from stolen or lost devices easily.
- Mobility – Microsoft applications can be easily accessed from anywhere on any device. It allows you to work seamlessly while on the move. It also enables you to work offline and save files by automatically synchronizing the devices when you are online.
- Advantage Automation – The automation features help in increasing productivity and saving a lot of time. Microsoft Power Automate allows users to create workflows to automate repetitive tasks. Microsoft Bookings help in automating appointment schedules.
- Reduced Business Cost – An in-house server can be very expensive, as you need to purchase software, and hardware, and pay for ongoing support and maintenance. Microsoft 365 allow users to pay according to their usage. It offers a wide range of plans based on the team members and functionalities. The users can simply pay a monthly subscription fee that includes hardware, software, support, and maintenance.
- Improved Scalability – While an in-house server can only manage the pre-defined system and user requirements, Microsoft 365 allows you to add more users to your email and document management system as your business grows. There is no need to purchase additional hardware and software or hire technical team members to manage the system. Microsoft 365 makes it easier to add or remove users and scale up or down according to dynamic business needs.
- Latest Features and Updates – This is one of the most significant benefits of migrating to Microsoft 365. With the evolving technological environment, Microsoft keeps on adding new features and updates to the system. It enables users to access the latest technologies and tools to stay up-to-date which can be otherwise very expensive and time-consuming.
Considering all the benefits of migrating to Microsoft 365, migrating to Microsoft 365 can help you save money, improve accessibility, enhance security, and much more. While migration offers enormous benefits, it can be challenging to migrate PST files to Microsoft 365.
How to Import PST to Microsoft 365?
- Using Outlook Import Wizard – This option is appropriate when only a small number of PST files need to be migrated. Outlook users can use the “Import/Export” option to import the PST files to Microsoft 365.
- Drive Shipping – This method involves saving PST files to the hard drive and shipping the secure hard drive to any Microsoft physical location. Then, the Microsoft team will upload the hard drive content to the Microsoft Azure storage. Once the team completes their job, the PST files can be imported into the same Azure storage location.
- Network Upload – If your region supports this option, it can help in uploading the PST files to an Azure storage location with the help of the internet.
The Outlook import wizard option is only relevant for a small number of PST files and the other methods are very tedious.
Also, you may encounter various challenges related to PST file size, mail item size limit, network issues, data security, and compliance issues. However, a PST to Microsoft 365 migration tool can easily help you overcome these challenges and migrate to Microsoft 365 successfully.
How to Choose the Best Microsoft 365 Migration Tool?
Check out the below-mentioned considerations while choosing the best-in-class PST to Microsoft 365 migration software.
- Direct Importing – A reliable migrator tool can help you upload, import, and migrate the PST files directly from your system to the mailboxes of Microsoft 365. While manual methods to import the PST files includes various steps, a PST to Microsoft 365 migrator tool allows you to upload and import PST files and migrate them to the Microsoft 365 mailboxes.
- Security and Compliance – The software must ensure that important mail items and sensitive information are uploaded to Microsoft 365 without any security breach. The migrator tool should also be able to leverage modern authentication while uploading and importing the PST files into Microsoft 365 mailbox.
- Size Limit of PST Files – While drive shipping and network upload options restrict users from uploading PST files larger than 10 GB and messages larger than 20 MB, a reliable PST to Microsoft 365 migrator tool does not limit uploading large PST files. Sometimes, Microsoft 365 can also skip large PST files within the import process, which can lead to empty or missing mailboxes even after finishing the import process successfully. With the migrator tool, you can just select the PST file, enter the credentials of the Microsoft 365 mailbox, and upload it to migrate the data securely to Microsoft 365.
- Advanced Search and Filter Options – The advanced search option allows users to include important mail items and exclude unnecessary emails from the PST files. This helps in saving the cloud storage in the Microsoft 365 environment. In addition, it improves the efficiency of the migration process as the spam and unimportant mail items are not migrated to Microsoft 365.
- Data Integrity – The PST migrator tool should be capable of migrating all the data from PST files to Microsoft 365 regardless of any file size or other issues. The mailbox hierarchy and folder structure should also be maintained within the migration process. The precision of data needs to be maintained without any missing or skipped mail items.
- Flexibility – For methods such as drive shipping, you may need to spend an additional $2 per GB for uploading the PST files to Azure. This can be a huge amount for migrating large PST files to Microsoft 365. Therefore, a PST to Microsoft 365 migrator tool is a better option. For example, Stellar Migrator for Outlook provides a pay-per-mailbox option where you can pay to migrate your important mailboxes to Microsoft 365 and save costs.
How Stellar Migrator for Outlook Can Be the Best Choice?
It is an excellent application to simplify the migrate all the data of PST files to Microsoft 365. Stellar Migrator is an all-inclusive tool to assist users in migrating their Outlook emails, calendars, contacts, tasks, notes, and other information to Microsoft 365 environment. The easy-to-use interface enables users to migrate the data without taking help from the IT staff. Now, let’s check out how to migrate Outlook data to Microsoft 365 with Stellar Migrator for Outlook.
Step 1: Run Stellar Migrator for Outlook
Step 2: Select and scan the mailbox to initiate the migration process.
Step 3: Once the scanning process is complete, connect to the licensing account.
Step 4: Click Migrate Mailbox from the Home tab and check the remaining count of licenses in the pop-up box. It indicates the number of software licenses remaining and in-progress license counts.
Step 5: Click OK. The Migrate Mailbox dialog box will appear.
Step 6: Choose Microsoft 365 and click Next.
Step 7: Choose Microsoft 365 profile name from the dropdown list.
Step 8: Click Migrate to start the migration process.
Note: Apply Advance Filter option to keep and discard the PST files in Microsoft 365 mailbox.
Step 9: After the completion of the migration process, the message “Mailbox successfully moved to Microsoft 365” will appear.
Step 10: Click OK
Conclusion
Migrating to Microsoft 365 is a great option, provides 99.9% server uptime, online support, and maintenance along with enterprise-grade security. Stellar Migrator for Outlook can help you choose all these benefits by migrating Outlook data seamlessly to Microsoft 365. Start using Stellar Migrator for Outlook today.
