Below are Steps taken to migrate from perpetual office 2010 to Office 365 at a small business.
Overall, the project is to migrate a small business from a perpetual office license model to subscription Office 365. We need to give users modern tools and save money!
Project Background information:
Based on the cost from research it turns out the perpetual licensing is clearly a thing of the past ( 1 example: https://www.myonlinetraininghub.com/office-365-vs-perpetual-licences).
Clouds Seats…We already do it with Adobe, Smartsheet, etc. Office is next. Savings are big and clear.
To get started we need to embrace purchasing via a Cloud Solution Provider. “Cloud seats utilize “CSP program is a great new option for clients that desire the unique features of this model, and also want their Datapipe support relationship to extend to Azure and Office 365. With CSP, Datapipe also manages more of the details related to cloud accounts and subscriptions. A client can leverage CSP for the entirety of their cloud usage, or to supplement existing licensing such as an EA.”
Why not buy direct and use EA?
Too Old School and modeled for larger corps.
“The EA Microsoft’s Enterprise Agreement (EA), which has long been a favorite of both Microsoft and resellers for organizations with over 250 users.”
Here are the top benefits of working with a Microsoft CSP:
“Your Microsoft CSP manages your software licenses, including renewals and software upgrades. You pay only for what you need and can increase or decrease your licenses on the spot and at any time. All licenses are conveniently managed in one predictable billing cycle – no surprises when the bill comes due. Get IT tech support for all licenses. Cost-effective pricing packages created specifically for your cloud service needs. No extra cost to your business.”
So here’s how it went down in steps:
Step 1. I found out where we stood with licenses—>An MLS report just allows me to get a report from Microsoft with numbers of all the licenses you currently have registered to you. This was done through the decided CSP. That allowed us to have something to start working off of when we’re talking your current licensing situation. It’s no cost to you if you pull an MLS report. You just have to give permission to the CSP in order for them to ask Microsoft for you.
Step 2, With the CSP we met a few times to go over results–> Turns out we had OEM licensing on those machines. Not an issue as far as ownership but more tricky on upgrade solutions.
Step 3. We officially found out where we were short on upgradable perpetual licenses and chose the path for a staggered upgrade to fill in possible gap. Project Documents and plan of attack was formed.
Step 4. Officially signed up with said CSP (cloud solution provider)
Step 5. Determined types of seats to buy. Started with just a handful and admins and a couple of execs will be a test body.
Step 6. Found we had to merge other licenses and assign the new Tenant to the tenant i already own through the company.
Step 7. Receive the provisioned order via email
Step 8. Access your office 365 portal : https://login.microsoftoneline.com/
Step 9. Documentation created on how to purchase new licenses and assign to users.
Step 10. Shared documentation & tested add-ins for special ERP (Com-Add in) in excel.
Step 11. More testing and dish out documentation to Help Desk Analyst for her to test.
Step 12. Move ahead with roll-out and document everything!
….Moving ahead we will continue to train and educate folks on apps and ultimately test and plan for the future cutover to outlook from on-prem Lotus Notes. This will be an entirely longer more difficult project.
Ryan Messier 