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Ultimate Guide to Merge Office 365 Tenants Without Data Loss!

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Published By Mohit Jha
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
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Published On September 18th, 2024
Sypnosis: Office 365 has emerged as the most prominent business solution. In today’s space, Office 365 offers unmatched productivity with a host of collaborative solutions. These solutions are being used across industries which raises the query - How to merge Office 365 tenants? Combining two Office 365 tenants simply means migrating the user accounts from one Office 365 tenant to another.

This might seem like an easy enough task but in reality, this process is extremely intricate and requires a lot of preparation. The organization would face loss of crucial data if this process is not performed with extreme care. Microsoft is not offering any straightforward solution for this. But, here we will discuss a secure and effective trick to resolve the query.

Possible Reasons for Merging Tenants in Office 365!

In many cases, manage multiple Office 365 tenants will be a hassle. An organization undergoing massive changes would want to know how to merge Office 365 tenants. Some situations that would lead to merging the tenants in Office 365 are:

  • In case the company is merging with another company to expand its market share in its industry.
  • If an organization acquires another organization, the user accounts would be moved to another tenant for better collaboration between employees. 
  • Merging two Office 365 tenants is the only option when there is a need to move the user accounts from the child company tenant to the parent company tenant.
  • Reduces licensing costs by consolidating subscriptions across the organization.
  • Centralizes administration for easier user and resource management.
  • Implements unified security and compliance policies for all users.

Understanding the Prerequisites to Merge Office 365 Tenants

Before starting with this process, there are some that the user should complete ensuring the smooth transfer of all the data. If the user fails to complete these tasks, the consequences would be dire. Plus, there is the risk of data loss. Let’s look at the prerequisites –

  • The person performing the merger should have admin access to both tenants.
  • The user should assign the appropriate licenses to the destination accounts so that the users don’t face any problems in accessing the data stored in their accounts post-merger.
  • Create user accounts on the source tenants & also create a CSV file to map the source and destination user accounts to merge Office 365 tenants.
  • Set the TTL(Time To Live) value as low as possible to ensure the migration of the latest data when the user has to combine Office 365 tenants.
  • Confirm your Office 365 credentials to expedite the process to find Microsoft 365 tenant ID.
  • Train the end users to use the Office 365 application post-migration.
  • The MX record value of the source tenant should be changed to stop the flow of emails to the account.
  • It is necessary to communicate with the end users about the migration process. The users might end up confused and clueless after the merger is completed if they are not properly communicated with.

How to Merge Office 365 Tenants? – Recommended Ways

Merging Office 365 tenants manually involves consolidating users, data, and services from one tenant into another. Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide:

#Phase 1: Prepare the Destination Tenant

  • Log into the destination tenant’s admin center.
  • Navigate to Users > Active users.
  • Click Add a user and fill in the necessary information.
  • Assign the appropriate licenses to each user.
  • Repeat for all users you want to migrate.
  • Go to Setup > Domains.
  • Click Add Domain and follow the prompts to verify the domains from the source tenant.
  • Ensure no overlapping domains exist between tenants.

#Phase 2: Migrate Email Mailboxes

  • Log into Outlook with the source tenant account.
  • Go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
  • Select Export to a file and choose Outlook Data File (.pst).
  • Choose the mailbox folders to export and complete the export.
  • Log into Outlook with the destination tenant account.
  • Go to File > Open & Export > Import/Export.
  • Select Import from another program or file and choose Outlook Data File (.pst).
  • Locate the PST file and finish the import to merge Office 365 tenants data.

#Phase 3: Migrate OneDrive Files

  • Log into OneDrive for the source tenant.
  • Select files and folders and click Download.
  • Save them locally.
  • Log into OneDrive for the destination tenant.
  • Click Upload and select the files you just downloaded.

#Phase 4: Migrate SharePoint Sites

  • Access SharePoint in the source tenant.
  • Go to document libraries and select files to download.
  • Navigate to the destination SharePoint site.
  • Go to the corresponding document libraries and click Upload.

#Phase 5: Migrate Teams

  • Log into Microsoft Teams in the destination tenant.
  • Manually create teams and channels that exist in the source tenant.
  • Use the SharePoint migration steps above to move files associated with Teams.

#Phase 6: Update User Access and Settings

  • Set up any necessary policies, security settings, and permissions for the users in the destination tenant.
  • Inform users about their new accounts and provide instructions for accessing services.

That’s it! From now on, you can access your two different tenant’s data within one account.

Bottom Lines!

How to merge Office 365 tenants? This is one of the most complicated procedures an IT  professional would come across in their career. The lack of a solution from Microsoft makes this task more complex. This is one of the reasons why this article presents a dedicated solution.  This technique is suitable for professionals as well as people with less experience with technology.

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