Kiefer has had a long partnership with ShareGate. ShareGate is an invaluable tool for organizations that makes it quick and easy to migrate to SharePoint or Microsoft 365. A few benefits of ShareGate Desktop include;
- You can migrate all versions of SharePoint with unlimited data
- Organizations can reorganize and restructure SharePoint content using ShareGate Desktop
- The ability to monitor and secure your environment thanks to built-in and custom reports
ShareGate is Kiefer’s preferred tool for SharePoint migrations.
Our team of consultants often recommend ShareGate as a migration tool and have invested a great deal of time learning how to use it, even finding ways to use PowerShell in conjunction with ShareGate to migrate content. I had a chance to interview one of our Principal Consultants, Andy Coyle and ask Andy a few questions about why we recommend ShareGate as a preferred migration tool and how it compares with other tools in the market. Andy had some great perspectives on why Kiefer has standardized on ShareGate and what it means for our clients.
If you are not technical, the important thing to know is that Kiefer is a ShareGate partner and has the in-house expertise to help your organization leverage the product for a SharePoint migration. Your organization may have already decided that they are fans of ShareGate and are already using it to migrate content or run reports. If that is the case, consider purchasing (or renewing) ShareGate from Kiefer. We will be able to offer a competitive price and you will be able to count on the Kiefer team for expertise when it comes time to use the product.
I encourage you to share this blog with colleagues that work in I.T. or with the SharePoint experts in your organization. I think that they will appreciate the technical angle shared by Andy and it may help them in making decision about how they approach a migration effort or developing a strategy to move SharePoint to the cloud.
An interview with Andy Coyle, Principal Consultant
Brian: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Andy. First question might seem like an obvious one… Why should our clients use ShareGate?
Andy: The truth is, if you are going to move to Microsoft 365, which many of our customers are doing, you have to use a tool to migrate – no matter what. Microsoft does have a tool to help you in migrating content, but it lacks some of the features that we’ve come to appreciate in ShareGate. We have used Mover, a migration tool that Microsoft purchased in October 2019, but ShareGate is the gold standard when it comes to migration tools. Easy to use, cost effective, and offering the client benefits even after the migration is complete.
In engagements where Kiefer has helped clients migrate to SharePoint, we have introduced many customers to the ShareGate product. What is important to point out is that many of these customers have kept and renewed ShareGate licenses because they found that there are additional features that are useful in managing SharePoint.
Brian: I always think of ShareGate as primarily a migration tool. What else do clients use it for?
Andy: We rely on ShareGate to do all kinds of things. Even when a major migration effort is complete, you will still have situations that arise where you must move sites or reorganize content in SharePoint. ShareGate is the easy way to get that done.
One of the other features of ShareGate that I think is very valuable is the reporting feature. You can use ShareGate to audit the SharePoint environment and ensure permissions are set appropriately, see what new sites have been created and much more. Using ShareGate as an administrative tool makes a lot of sense.
Brian: What are some other popular migration tools?
We still use a variety of tools for migrations. Metalogix is a robust and excellent migration tool. We have clients that love it. In many cases, we recommend ShareGate because it is reasonably priced and gives the client the basic features they are going to need to successfully migrate.
As I mentioned, I have used Mover too and it works for some very specific migration efforts, like moving content from file shares or GoogleDocs. There are use-cases for using Mover.
The best thing about our approach at Kiefer is that we are more interested in helping you succeed in your migration, not as interested in selling you a migration product. We will assess your content and help you find the best tool for the job. If ShareGate is the right tool, you can buy it from us and we will be able to offer it at a competitive price.
Brian: ShareGate prides itself on being easy to use. I know we’ve had several clients that have bought licenses from us without asking for our support. Can most clients migrate without the help of consultants and use just the tool?
Andy: ShareGate is easy to use. Some organizations have the expertise to migrate without our help.
I believe that the organizations that hire us to assist with the migration effort are getting the benefit of consultants that know the product in and out. We have so much experience with ShareGate and can really help a customer take full advantage of all the features and functionality of the product.
We are a Microsoft Partner so we do a lot of scripting in Powershell. After using ShareGate we can run PowerShell against ShareGate to automate things. There are certain things that we do with PowerShell that you simply can’t do through the ShareGate interface.
SharePoint is core for us at Kiefer and we have a deep understanding of how to get content into the SharePoint environment and how to best manage it.
The best thing about our approach at Kiefer is that we are more interested in helping you succeed in your migration, not as interested in selling you a migration product. We will assess your content and help you find the best tool for the job.
— Andy Coyle, Principal Consultant
Brian: I’m sure you have an example of how we’ve helped a client migrate and the benefit of using ShareGate as a migration tool, could you share one?
Andy: Yes. Something that is important to know when you go from on-prem to online, you will need to restructure all your sites to work in SharePoint’s modern architecture. This requires deploying site templates. This is not easy to do in SharePoint Online and will require custom code. At Kiefer, we were able to create a process in ShareGate to quickly replicate site template functionality, without custom code. This saves a lot of time and accelerates the migration effort.
Brian: Very cool. Thanks for spending the time to share your perspectives.
Andy: My pleasure.
