“The modern workplace is an evolving concept and in today’s world it means allowing employees to work anywhere, anytime, anyhow.”

 

Migrating to a new MDM solution can be a daunting task.  

In many cases, the existing MDM solution is not supported or well documented. What’s worse, the people who built the existing system may no longer be available. 

In spite of these challenges, there are specific steps you can take to streamline the process and complete the migration with minimal friction and frustration.  

 

Common Pitfalls

Here are the most common pitfalls we see organizations experience during Microsoft Intune migrations.

  1. Failing to start early enough.  We see many clients forced into a situation where they have to negotiate an extension to their legacy MDM contract and pay for two MDM platforms in parallel. 

  2. Failing to document all use cases in the existing MDM solution 
    You may not want an exact 1:1 between your existing solution and Microsoft Intune, but you will need to know your users’ starting points to provide good instructions for the migration 

  3. Failing to draft and test communications extensively 
    Migrating to Microsoft Intune is a change management exercise and will necessarily involve non-technical users doing things to their devices that are normally not expected of users. To reduce user stress, downtime, and call center volume, test the instructions in your communications extensively – make sure they are specific to the OS of your users’ phones and test multiple Android devices. 

  4. Failing to support users 
    Your regular helpdesk may not be the right staff to provide support for the migration. Instead, we see success when a specific team is stood up to answer migration calls, and only migration calls.  

  5. Failing to distribute the migration volume 
    Start small to give you time to adjust your processes and communications. To ensure success, consider spreading your migration out into even groups separated by days or weeks. This results in a more balanced support volume throughout the project. Where possible, separate ‘easy’ use cases from ‘difficult’ use cases so that the difficult cases are as evenly spread as possible. 

  6. Failing to get senior leadership buy in 
    If you have senior leaders that are not champions, then your migration will be more difficult. Ensure all senior leaders are champions, not detractors. If necessary, send IT staff to personally migration VIPs’ devices early in the project. That way when their staff raise objections the leader can state their device has been migrated already and that the business has expectations for all workers. 

  7. Failing to give the stragglers a hard deadline.  Like any IT project, the first 90% is easy and sometimes the last 10% of users require 90% of the effort and energy.  You may need to create a compelling event, along with carrots and sticks, to convince some people to go through with the migration in your timeframe.  

     

How to Make your Microsoft Intune Migration a Success

Now that you understand some common pitfalls to avoid, the next phase should focus on developing the right plan.  

To facilitate this process, we have created an extensive, step-by-step guide that outlines the practical action items you need to take when moving to a new MDM. 

In this guide:  

  1. How to plan and configure your new environment build.

  2. Three ways to test and validate your migration before it begins. 

  3. How to segment and support users to ensure rapid adoption.

 

Conclusion

Microsoft Intune is a part of Microsoft Endpoint Manager and provides the cloud infrastructure, the cloud-based mobile device management (MDM), cloud-based mobile application management (MAM), and cloud-based PC management for your company.

If you have questions about Microsoft Intune, feel free to contact us, or take a look at our services.

 

Download the MDM Migration Guide Today!

Shane Sloan

Shane is our Vice President of Products and Innovation our managed service line of business as well as our enterprise Intune migration program. Shane is a graduate of Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management with a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA). Prior to joining Mobile Mentor, Shane spent 9 years at AIG’s Life Insurance division focused on development, automation engineering and quality assurance leadership. In 2007, Shane obtained a Bachelor’s of Science in Information Technology from Colorado Technical University. Prior to undergrad, Shane had a distinguished career with the US Army as a Blackhawk helicopter crew chief.