SharePoint 2019 Upgrade or Office 365 Migration Q&A

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Joel Oleson

Thanks to everyone who attended the “Upgrade to SharePoint 2019 or Migrate to Office 365” webinar. You can download the materials here:

Here are the questions and answers from the webinar… enjoy!

Can you share this infographic after the webinar – it’s useful

Thanks. Here’s a link to the SharePoint Upgrade infographic on Gennet.

@Joel – Does the data/tool “Gateway” work with Office365/SP Online as well as SP2019?

The Gateway is designed to provide a mechanism for Flow, PowerApps, etc… to have access to on premise systems including SharePoint 2019. It’s an infrastructure.

Any recommendations for a method of converting InfoPath based forms to PowerApps in anticipation of InfoPath losing support in 2026?

Here’s an article that may help you with your Journey: Transform you Infopath forms to PowerApps.

PowerApps and Flow

Are drag and drop columns only available in office365? Yes, that arrived as recently as January/February 2019. Formatted columns is in SharePoint 2019. You can read more about the modern features in SharePoint 2019 in the TechNet Forums.

But for how long? Unlimited One Drive storage

It goes in stages. Read this writeup for details on how it works…
OneDrive Storage is unlimited

Can General Networks break use the analysis done by another vendor as the intro to an engagement?

We can start with the analysis. We’ll still need some time to get familiar with you and your environment, and may need to collect additional information if it wasn’t included in the analysis but it would save some time.

Can search be across domains under single global tenancy?

Sorry no cross tenant search but setting up hybrid on premises including multiple farms and online search is definitely possible. If you’re asking about multiple geo’s in one tenant, then yes. Really depends on what you mean by domains.

Can we still develop custom workflow app on SharePoint Online?

Custom workflows online are now built with Flow for the most part, but there are ways of migrating workflows with tools.

Can you go directly from 2010 to Office 365?

Yes, with Third party migration tools.

Can you setup SharePoint Online to be accessible from multiple Microsoft Tenants?

There’s one SharePoint instance per tenant. There’s no multiple tenants or multiple SharePoint. It’s a 1:1 relationship.

Do we know what will replace InfoPath?

Forms, Flow and PowerApps

Do you know if SharePoint 2019 server communication site support anonymous? Also, can be created as host name site collection?

I haven’t tested it, but recently the root site collection in Office 365 was enabled to support it. It’s much easier in on premises to define the root site collection. With SharePoint 2019 you can configure the sites to use whatever authentication you like. SharePoint 2019 does support host named site collections.

Do you think all the InfoPath form was created at 2013 can migrate to the Office 365. Or we do need to redo it completely?

I have seen it work with very some slight configuration using the tool Sharegate. I’m sure there are other tools that can help you migrate your forms as workflows as well. There are a few exceptions: InfoPath forms that must be deployed via SharePoint Central Admin and approved by an administrator due to managed code are not supported in SharePoint Online / Office 365. Some data connections may need to be removed or remediated if they are on-premises data sources. The SMAT tool can be used to identify incompatible InfoPath forms before Migration.

Does Microsoft FastTrack provide services for SharePoint?

Yes, but the SharePoint migration programs with SharePoint to SharePoint are expired and no longer available.

Does Teams integrate just as well with SP 2019 on-prem?

No. There are not as many integration points. You can add pages and you can publish your SPFx.

Does the Online Tool Gateway require a separate server or utilize one of the SP servers that would already exist?

It is a separate server. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/flow/gateway-reference

For a new SharePoint environment should we just go to O365 or is it worth considering 2019 on premise?

If you can, you should migrate to Office 365. That should be your default choice as that’s where most innovation is going… It’s cloud first.

FYI: Audio loud and clear, Cathy, and we can see Joel’s screen.

General Networks Team is AWESOME !!!

Thanks for the endorsement… 😊

Have you had clients make claims against MS’ SLAs? It seems Office 365 is less reliable than our on-prem environment.

Yes, I encourage it. If you’re beating these numbers that’s great. If you’re getting higher than 99.97 that’s pretty impressive.

Here are the recent uptime statistics per quarter:

2019
Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
99.97%

2018
Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
99.99%	99.98%	99.97%	99.98%

2017
Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
99.99%	99.97%	99.98%	99.99%

Have you seen any issues with users knowing they have unlimited storage? Meaning – do people abuse that service and overlook content management best practices if storage is not an issue?

Not really. Most users will never get to their first TB. In a company of 5000 we never saw anyone store over 4TB. This is something you can manage and something you can control. There are gates to continue to increase user storage. I wrote about it here: OneDrive Storage is unlimited

How about exe files

In SharePoint 2019 you can control the blocked file types. In online, it’s not very restrictive.

How about user analytics?

SharePoint 2019 has new analytics features, so does Office 365. It’s still no WebTrends, but if you want to get information on who has viewed a file and how many times, you’re covered.

If we are going to migrate are we able to migrate the customize master page to the new SharePoint 2019 ?

When you upgrade you can keep the sites in classic mode, but you should update your master pages, assuming your current version is SharePoint 2013 or later. SharePoint 2010 master pages are not compatible with SharePoint 2019 or Office 365, even in classic mode.

if we have licenses for SP 365 online can we use them also as a cals for in promise at the same time if we have two environments

Licensing is different for Office 365 from Server and CAL. You can read more about SharePoint Licensing on Microsoft’s site.

If you have SPO and SP2016 in a DC or Azure, can search work across that?

Yes, you can setup hybrid crawler with either of those configurations.

If your primary goal is file sharing/versioning is it better to just use Teams or use SharePoint without Teams?

Typical file sharing scenarios are better with straight up SharePoint, but if you’re sharing files across a team the Teams interface is great. Really depends on the team.

Is Microsoft planning to do any Feature Packs like they did for SP 2016, to bring new features to on-prem SharePoint?

No announcements have been made related to “feature packs” as of 5/16/19

Is O365 SP 2019 or do you have the option of 2016 or 2019?

Office 365 SharePoint Online is a moving target and beyond SharePoint 2019. In fact it’s more like SharePoint 2019 is a product born from the Office 365 SharePoint Online back from 2018.

Is the SP2013 ribbon gone?

Yes, modern has a different library user experience.

iI there a way to setup take advantage of a hybrid environment (SP Online and SP on prem) so as to minimize data stored online and therefore cost?

SharePoint Online isn’t expensive storage, but the storage is based on the site collection… there’s no stretching a site across both environments or pointing the storage at one or the other.

Most important one should be SharePoint Online does not support anonymous site. This is the hard limit there is no way to overcome. We do have quite a few anonymous publishing sites on SharePoint 2013.

OneDrive Mac using the thin sync yet? OneDrive Mac does have availability of the Next Generation Sync Client for the latest MAC OS. I’m not sure what you mean by thin sync.

We are in SharePoint 2010, is it good to do an upgrade or migrate the content directly to SP2019?

That would be my recommendation. You’d need to use a third party tool to accomplish it.

We are on SharePoint 2013 and planning to migrate to O365. My question, is it better to upgrade SharePoint 2013 to 2019 and do Hybrid or setup hybrid sp2013 and later plan for 2019 upgrade?

It’s better to migrate directly to Office 365. There is no advantage in migrating to 2019 then trying to migrate online.

What are some bigger issues with going to Office 365? We have nintex for running workflows, which connect to other local resources on site such as SQL Server databases, shares, and what not. Do you see any issues with those and referencing locally? I understand that Nintex may have some licensing issues moving to 365, but aside from that are there any gotchas that you know of?

The good news is Nintex has a good story for Office 365. Nintex partners with ShareGate for migration of Nintex workflows from SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online. Any data sources that are referenced on-premise will need to be configured for external access for the Nintex workflows to retain access.

What do you prefer for long terms better with Office 365 or Sharepoint 2019 and then have to migrate again 2022?

I do recommend Office 365 as the more future proof solution to minimize upgrades in the future.

what is an estimate cost for such assessment and roadmap planning engagement

Roughly between $5,000 and $10,000, depending on the size and complexity of your environment. We are offering a special Webinar rate: contact Cathy, cashbaugh@gennet.com and use code: May16

What is the compelling reason to stay on prem on 2019

I covered this in the session. I’d recommend referring to that slide, but the gist of it is your ability to own the environment from end to end.

What kind of customizations would cause an application to not be a good candidate for O365?

Server assemblies, code behind InfoPath forms, and sandbox solutions. Most things can easily be re-written and many will migrate.

When you say Exchange, does this need to be Exchange in the cloud?

No. The alerts and groups may be a little strange if all email is on premises, but you can work around it.

When/where will the SharePoint upgrade business case slides be available?

They are already uploaded to Slideshare.net at

Where is GNC offices?

Our main office is in Glendale, California

Who managed Office 365? We have teams for Exchange, SharePoint, AD, Group Policy, etc. Microsoft is pushing people to teams with sites, groups, mailboxes, etc. Who administers this?

Microsoft Manages the various servers/services. Office 365 includes an Administrator portal for different roles, such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, etc. where your IT can manage configurable settings on the service.

Will Hub site be available in 2019?

Unfortunately No.

Will automated transcription of audio/video files be available in 2019?

It is an Office 365 feature. There may be some capabilities if you can integrate with Flow.

Will custom 2013 .wsp solutions run in O365 and 2019 on-prem?

WSPs are note supported in Office 365. You’ll need to do testing, but yes, one of the reasons people may choose to stay on premises is they can continue to use WSP solution files in SharePoint 2019.

With SharePoint 2019, there is improved Flow, PowerApps and Power BI Integration. Does a customer needs O365 in order to use Flow / PowerApps on SP2019?

Yes. Flow, PowerApps, and so on can be integrated with the Gateway infrastructure. There is licensing that you’ll need to use these tools. The tools have different licensing based on which tool features and so on.