Many customers are on some form of GoDaddy for email, whether that be IMAP or 365 syndicate program. Migrating from this environment can be tricky even when using a 3rd party tool like BitTitan or Skykick. Moving off of GoDaddy’s Office 365 program requires defederating the tenant. I have steps of how to do that without having to migrate or call GoDaddy in another article. Click here for that article. My number one recommendation for these types of environments is to prepare weeks in advance. In this article, i am going to give you best practices to follow and step-by-step guides I’ve created for these environments.
GoDaddy IMAP
Migrating off of GoDaddy’s IMAP platfrom can be done using a free tool like Microsofts native tool in the Exchange Admin Center or you could use a 3rd party tool like BiTitan. In both cases, only mail items will be migrated over. For this reason, it is best to make backups of your calendar/contacts/notes so that you can import them into the new 365 profile after you cutover. Some of the benefits for using a paid 3rd party tool would be to help automate the data transfer and to automatically reconfigure outlook profiles after the move is complete. Below are my guides and recommendations.
Migrating Using the IMAP Cutover Tool
- Free Tool within Exchange Admin Center
- Can monitor upload speeds and create a connection from Godaddy to Office 365
Step-by-Step Guide:
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Migrating Using BitTitan
- Paid Tool
- Automates Reconfiguration of autolook profiles
Step-by-Step Guide:
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Save a local Copy of OST File
- Save copy of OST file from Outlook Profile
- Export Calendar/Contacts to PSTs
Migrating Using BitTitan
- Paid Tool
- Automates Reconfiguration of autolook profiles
Step-by-Step Guide:
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GoDaddy Office 365
When customers are on GoDaddy’s Office 365 Platform their MX records are the same as if they were on regular Office 365. For this reason, you can either defederate the tenant which does not require a migration or you can defederate and migrate to a new tenant. Below are my guides and recommendations.
Defederate without Migraion
- No downtime
- Never have to call GoDaddy
- No migration required
- No end user mailbox deletion
Step-by-Step Guide:
OR
Migrating Using BitTitan
- Paid tool
- Automates data move and recreation of Outlook profiles
- Do have to plan for downtime
Reasons you would want to migrate to a new tenant
- SharePoint URLs would retain GoDaddy’s default .onmicrosoft domain name if you do not migrate.
- GoDaddy creates a tenant with a default prefix like you see below. By default, all SharePoint sites have this in the URL and there is no way to change
- License Activation Issues
- Users are less likely to see license activation issues in outlook if you migrate and use a tool like BitTitan or Skykick that automatically reconfigures their outlook profile. Whether you are performing the migration or not, user password reset IS REQUIRED
- GoDaddy Refederation
- In some cases, GoDaddy regains access to the tenant and runs a script to remove all users and domains after you cancel the subscription with them after you have performed the defederation. If you remove them as Delegated admin as I outlined and remove all access to any admin accounts they will not have any way to perform this action. If you want additional reassurance that this will not happen, you would migrate. GoDaddy removing domains and users is a recoverable action but it does lead to downtime.