TAMU Email Migration

Pre-Export Tasks

  1. Return the AllCollegeUserMailboxes.xlsx file to Jay Carper with all of your migrating mailboxes highlighted. AIT will use this to send X500 addresses and other information to CIS so they can create contacts on the TAMU Exchange system for mail routing continuity during the migration.
  2. Plan to migrate shared mailboxes at the same time as the mailbox owners.
  3. Create the new mailbox on the TAMU Exchange system.
  4. Send an email to (not to Jay Carper) with the user’s exact AGNET ID (first.last) and the destination email address (not their @tamu.edu address because that address may already be in use by their AGNET mailbox) when you are ready to begin forwarding the email to their TAMU mailbox. This will create a ticket telling FirstCall to configure the forwarding. See below for more details.
  5. If the user is migrating to TAMU’s Exchange system, the destination address will be
  6. If the user is migrating to Gmail, the destination address will be .
  7. Once AIT has confirmed that the AGNET mailbox has been forwarded to the TAMU mailbox, you can test mail routing and begin exporting the old mailbox. To minimize interruptions for the end user, there should be minimal delay between forwarding a mailbox and starting the export.
  8. AIT will inform you if the mailbox is on Litigation Hold. In those rare cases, after configuring the forwarding, FirstCall will transfer the migration ticket to Jay Carper to handle the mailbox export and handoff to CIS.

Mailbox Exports

Methods of exporting a mailbox.

  1. User-to-PST: Export the mailbox directly from the end user’s Outlook client to a PST file.
  2. Mailbox-to-Mailbox: Configure Outlook to connect to both mailboxes and copy items from one mailbox to the other.
  3. IT-to-PST: AIT can give the department IT manager access to the mailbox and the IT manager can move it or export it to a PST file.

User-to-PST

(Recommended method)

  1. The end user should already have his or her AGNET mailbox configured in Outlook.
  2. From within Outlook 2010, go to the File tab, select Open, then Import.
  3. Select “Export to a file” and click Next.
  4. Select “Outlook data file (.pst)” and click Next.
  5. Select the very top of the mailbox (not Inbox, Sent Items, or any other folder under the top), check the “Include subfolders” box, and click Next.
  6. Click on the Browse button to specify the location and name of the pst file. Do not select a network location. Create all Outlook Data Files on the computer’s hard drive and then copy them to where you need them on the network.
  7. Click the Finish button.
  8. On the “Add optional password” window, click OK without entering a password.
  9. When the export is complete, repeat the same process for the user’s Online Archive mailbox if one exists.

Mailbox-to-Mailbox

  1. This is the method most likely to result in data loss.
  2. The end user should already have his or her AGNET mailbox configured in Outlook.
  3. In the same Mail profile, open the Account Settings window and click New to add an email account.
  4. Configure the TAMU email account as instructed by CIS.
  5. I recommend that you create a folder in the TAMU mailbox called AgriLife or Agnet or something of that nature to serve as a repository for migrated data. Copy all data into this folder and then let the user move it to wherever they need it.
  6. Ensure that Outlook is in Folder View so that you can see all of the special folders, such as Calendar, Contacts, etc.
  7. Right-click on a folder in the AGNET mailbox and select Copy Folder. I recommend that you only use “copy” and not “move.”
  8. Specify the folder you created above for the copy destination.
  9. Repeat this step for every folder in the original mailbox.

IT-to-PST

  1. VERY IMPORTANT: Unless you are only going to request access to one mailbox at a time, disable caching mode in Outlook on your own computer BEFORE continuing.
  2. Contact AIT and request Full Access permissions on the end user’s mailbox. This should cause Outlook to automatically connect to the mailbox as long as you are logged in as yourself. You might have to restart Outlook.
  3. If you are only migrating one mailbox at a time and Outlook is in caching mode, wait for all folders in the mailbox to be fully updated before continuing.
  4. Follow the User-to-PST instructions above for each user mailbox and archive.
  5. Do not request Full Access permissions to a large number of mailboxes at the same time or Outlook will begin behaving erratically. Follow a handful (at most) of migrationsall the way through to completion before requesting access to more.

Post-Export Tasks

  1. Update any distribution groups on the TAMU Exchange side.
  2. Import the user’s data to their TAMU Exchange mailbox and verify that all data (Inbox, personal folders, calendars, contacts, etc.) were imported correctly.
  3. Test mail routing from three different senders: one from AGNET, one from TAMU, and one from an external domain such as Yahoo or Hotmail.
  4. When you have completed migrating the user’s data to their new mailbox and have confirmed mail routing, send another email to to let AIT know that it is ok to delete the user’s AGNET mailbox. Include the name of the AGNET mailbox and the email address of the new mailbox exactly as you provided it in the “Pre-Export Tasks” steps above.
  5. Test mail routing again after the user’s AGNET mailbox has been deleted.
  6. Update any distribution groups on the AGNET Exchange side. Although the user’s AGNET Active Directory user object will remain in all distribution groups, the mailbox associated with that user object has been deleted at this point. You must add the new Mail Contact to any distribution groups that you want to still route to this user from the AGNET side.

Potential Issues

Please be reminded of the following scenarios as you migrate to TAMU's Exchange system.These conditions will exist until TAMU IT has completed their project to sync the AgriLife Address book over to their Exchange and Lync systems.

Note that this is not a comprehensive list of all possible issues that you might encounter during the migration.

  1. TAMU Lync users will not be able to see AgriLife Lync users in their Lync address book. Migrated users may continue to use AgriLife's Lync system for the time being.
  2. TAMU Exchange users will not be able to see AgriLife Exchange users in their Address Book.
  3. If a migrated user replies to an email that they received before being migrated from an AGNET user who is not in their department or will not be migrating, that email might bounce unless they delete the recipient from the From field and manually type in the correct email address.
  4. If your department did not send me a list of all migrating users before beginning your migration you could have this same problem replying to people in your own department as well.
  5. Because of the way Outlook interacts with Exchange, personal contacts that were saved out of the AGNET Global Address List could also cause bounced emails. Those personal contacts will have to be deleted and recreated using the correct email address.

All of these issues will be resolved when TAMU IT sync’s the AgriLife global address book into their system.

Document History

Version / Changed by / Change Description
2015.05.11 / Jay Carper / Created
2015.05.27 / Jay Carper / Updated with more detail
2015.06.11 / Jay Carper / Updated with more detail, testing instructions, and potential problems.
2015.06.25 / Jay Carper / Updated destination email address info and added instructions regarding AGNET-side distro groups.