Copy teams - Incremental

Users will likely keep using their old teams until the new environment is ready as you perform your Teams migrations.

With incremental copy, you can copy over what has changed since your initial Teams migration, so your users do not lose the work they have done during that time.

Note: You can only use incremental copy for teams migrated with the ShareGate migration tool 15.0 and higher since the migration tool requires the information from your initial migration to know which elements of your teams are new in the source.

Index

• How-to
• What is copied
• Limitations

How-to

1. In the migration task summary of your initial team migration, click on Configure incremental copy.
   • When you launch the initial migration of your teams, you will be taken to the task summary screen automatically.
   • To access the task summary screen later, click Tasks on the bottom-left menu, then look for your Teams migration task and click on it to open the task summary screen.
2. Select your desired teams and channels. You can click on the arrow at the left of your team's icon to reveal its channels underneath.
3. Click to change your copy options.
4. Click  to map users.
5. Click on Schedule incremental copy to run your incremental migration later.
6. Click on Start incremental copy to run your incremental migration right away.
7. When you start the copy right away, you will be taken to the task summary page, where you will be able to monitor the progress of the migration.
8. Once the action is completed, the migration report will show any successes, warnings, or errors. For more information, see Migration report.

What is copied or updated in incremental copy

• The settings and configuration of your teams are updated.
• The settings and configuration of your channels are updated.
• New apps.
• New tabs.
• New conversation messages and their replies. For more information, see Limitations below.
• Team membership, including private channels.
• The Microsoft 365 group associated with your team is updated.
• The Planner plans within your team.
• The site collection associated with the team and site collections associated with your private channels. Your team's connected site collections that contain your libraries and files are updated with the Copy if newer (incremental) method.

Limitations

• Up to 50 of the most recent conversations will be copied to the Posts tab. 
  
  • All conversations created in the time between the original copy and the incremental copy will be stored in an HTML archive page found in the Message history tab. This will include the 50 newest conversations copied to the Posts tab, and all conversations over that limit.
    
    Note: A conversation consists of the original channel message and its replies.
• The new channels created since the initial migration will not be migrated. They will have to be migrated separately.
• Because incremental copy relies on the initial task's migration data. You can only perform the incremental migration from the same machine with the same user account as the initial migration.
• Incremental copy is not supported if the source team no longer exists (the information from the initial migration is still displayed as a reference).
• Incremental copy is not supported if the destination team no longer exists when the source team was originally migrated into an existing team (the information from the initial migration is still displayed as a reference).
• If the original copy created a new team or channel in the destination, and that element is deleted, incremental copy will recreate it.
• If you rename your team or channel with the ShareGate migration tool during your initial migration, that new name is reused during the incremental copy and cannot be changed.
• The Membership setting you selected for your private channels during the initial migration is the one used for your incremental migration and cannot be changed.

Training video: For more info, watch Incremental Teams Migration.