Migrate BPOS users to Office 365 – or not as the case may be….

Much fanfare, party hats, whistles….. massive advertising…..

Office 365 is here….  but is it?

Right now, as I type this I am on the phone to Microsoft Online Services technical support whom obviously have had completely ZERO, nil, nada training in BPOS to Office 365 migrations.   Worse, they are obviously embarrassed about it.

Simple example…  I have a small customer of 20 users on BPOS.   They want on Office 365 now, and I am trying to initiate the migration request.   Reading this page linked directly from Microsoft’s own transition pages…

Sign in to the Office 365 portal using the same credentials you used in BPOS and then see Set up your desktop for Office 365. For information about using Lync 2010, see these Lync quick start guides and the Lync section of the Getting started page.

Really?   Well I have tried this now with three sets of BPOS user admin accounts and guess what….  you can’t logon.   Worse, the technical support team don’t know why, nor understand that instruction.

I thought then that I might be missing some step, so went back to the Administrator instructions linked from the same Microsoft transition pages where I read this:

For each subscription that you have, make sure that contact details for both the account owner and service administrator are up-to-date.

Monitor these email addresses regularly to check for email communications about transition.

Add @email.microsoftonline.com to your safe senders list to make sure you receive communications from Microsoft Online Services.

Ummm.. ok?   What exactly does this mean?    I am the admin, and do already monitor these addresses.   I am beginning to think that, in fact, Office 365 isn’t quite as ready as Microsoft would have you believe for BPOS customers.

Bit of a #FAIL and very unclear as to what we have to do to initiate our customers migrations.   Please fix it Microsoft.

  3 Replies to “Migrate BPOS users to Office 365 – or not as the case may be….”

  1. Thomas
    July 2, 2011 at 6:38 am

    The Transition Guide on the portal states that automatic transition will be available 4 months after GA. So you just have to wait.

    If you want to migrate BPOS to Office365 before that date you have to backup the PSTs in Outlook and import them in the new environment on Office365. In addition you have to call FOPE Support to have them remove your BPOS Domain from FOPE. Otherwise you cannot add it to Office365.

  2. Denis Meade (Microsoft)
    August 3, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Hi Nick.

    Along with the FAQ. Please have a look at Michael O’Neills blog talking to the process and pre-requisites in more detail. http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2011/08/02/the-transition-window-september-2011-to-september-2012.aspx

  3. August 3, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    Thanks people. Appreciate the information, it would have been great if the front line support staff had this same information instead of leading me on a wile goose chase.

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