How to Migrate from Microsoft Teams to Google Chat
For organizations using the Google Workspace ecosystem, unifying all communication channels is essential for productivity and simplicity. Migrating chat history from Microsoft Teams to Google Chat breaks down silos, creating a single, integrated hub for conversation that works seamlessly with Drive, Meet, and Calendar.
To facilitate this transition, Google’s new data migration service provides a direct path to copy your channel chat messages, helping your organization unify its communication platform.
Consolidating your chat platform is a strategic move to streamline operations and enhance team collaboration. Key benefits include:
Reduce Tool Sprawl: Eliminate the confusion and inefficiency of using parallel chat applications.
Create a Single Hub: Centralize team conversations in Google Chat, which is deeply integrated with the rest of Google Workspace.
Simplify User Experience: Provide your team with one platform for all their communication and collaboration needs, reducing context switching.
Preserve Conversation History: Maintain valuable context and knowledge by migrating historical channel conversations into Google Chat spaces.
AI Power built-into Google Chat: Google Workspace tools, such as Google Chat, are integrated with Gemini AI, a powerful AI model that helps boost efficiency.
What's Migrated (and What's Not)?
The service focuses specifically on migrating messages from Microsoft Teams channels. It's crucial to understand the scope and limitations.
What Is Migrated:
Channels & Spaces: Microsoft Teams channels are migrated into new, restricted spaces in Google Workspace.
Managers: A channel manager or owner in Teams becomes a space manager in Google Chat. If a channel has multiple managers, only one is assigned the manager role in the new space.
Naming: Channel names are converted to space names using a "TeamName-ChannelName" format (e.g., "General-My team").
Message Formatting: Plain text, bold, italics, strikethrough, paragraph spacing, and hyperlinks are supported.
Content: Emojis are supported, while GIFs and SharePoint links are displayed as hyperlinks to their source. Mentions are migrated as plain text.
What Is NOT Migrated:
Chat Types: One-on-one chats and multi-user private chats are not migrated.
Attachments & Rich Content: File attachments, pasted pictures, stickers, tables, and code snippets are not migrated.
Messages: Bot messages, messages from former employees, messages to external users, and custom emojis are not included.
Threads: For message threads longer than 500 replies, only the first 500 messages are migrated.
Other content not migrated: Underlining, rich text formatting, Streams, praise, approvals, information in message cards, and nested lists are not migrated.
Important Note: This tool is a productivity feature and is not intended for legal compliance. It is recommended to back up messages in Teams if they are required for legal or retention purposes.
Prerequisites Checklist
Before you start, you must meet several requirements.
For Google Workspace:
Super Administrator: The migration must be run by a super administrator.
User Accounts: Every user must have an existing Google Workspace account with a valid license and have the Google Chat service turned on.
For Microsoft Teams:
A user with the Global Administrator role is required for the setup.
You should have a good understanding of your Teams setup and can export a list of your teams as a CSV for reference.
Step-by-Step Migration Guide
The migration involves a detailed setup process before you can start copying data.
Step 1: Connect to Your Microsoft Account
Sign in to the Google Admin console as a super administrator.
Navigate to Menu> Data> Data import & export> Data Migration (New).
Scroll down to the "Migrate Data from Microsoft" section, and under Microsoft Teams, click Migrate.
You will be prompted to sign in with your Microsoft Global Administrator account to authorize the connection.
Step 2: Create and Upload the List of Teams
You must specify which Teams to migrate using a CSV file.
Create the CSV: The file must have a single column with the header Source MicrosoftTeamsID. Each row should contain the ID of a team you want to migrate. You can find these IDs by exporting a list of all teams from your Teams admin center. You can migrate up to 1,000 teams at a time.
Upload the File: In the Admin console, click Upload migration map CSV and select your file.
Step 3: Create and Upload the Identity Map (If Needed)
This CSV file maps source users to their new Google Workspace accounts. It has two columns:
Source Email and Destination Email.
Is it required? You do not need an identity map if users' email addresses are identical between Microsoft and Google Workspace, or if only the domain name is changing (e.g., from user@example.com to user@altostrat.com).
Upload the File: If needed, create your map and click Upload identity map CSV to upload it.
Step 4: Configure Migration Settings
Select a Start date for the migration. The service will only copy messages from this date forward.
Configure the options for mapping users who aren't in your identity map, if applicable.
Click Save.
Step 5: Run the Migration
Once the setup is complete, you can begin the migration process itself.
Start a Migration: Click Start migration. You can monitor the progress and download detailed reports at any time.
Run a Delta Migration: After the initial run, click Run delta migration to copy any new messages that have been added to Teams. Delta migrations do not duplicate the migrated messages. You cannot do this after the final rollout step.
Roll Out Spaces to Users: This is the final, critical step to make the migrated data visible to your users. In the Admin console, click Roll out spaces.
CRITICAL DEADLINE: This rollout must be completed within 90 days of starting the migration, otherwise, the migrated spaces and their data will be permanently deleted.
Post-Migration Best Practices
Re-create Retention Policies: After the migration, you must manually re-create any necessary data retention policies in Google Chat.
Exit the Migration: Once the rollout is complete, download your final logs and formally Exit migration. You cannot start a new migration until the previous one is exited, and you will lose access to the logs after exiting.
Expert Help for Your Chat Migration
Transitioning your company's communication history requires careful planning and execution. The limitations of the native tool, especially regarding attachments and one-on-one chats, mean that a successful migration often requires a more comprehensive strategy.
Cloudasta provides expert guidance and managed migration services to ensure a complete and seamless migration of your communication data, preserving context and minimizing disruption.
