From Network Solutions to Gmail: Modernizing Communication at University Motors

After years of using Network Solutions for email, the team at University Motors was frustrated. Unreliable service and security issues were a regular occurrence, with the team sometimes facing multi-day outages. They were ready to leave the downtime behind and modernize with the move to Google Workspace, and they needed experts who would help them realize that goal. This is where HiView came in, providing data migration, training, and communications services.

The challenge

All email data excluding attachments over 35 MB in size needed to be migrated to Gmail. Additionally, all user email addresses—including those with secondary domains—were to be migrated. Additionally, as the team did not previously have a file storage and collaboration solution, users were unfamiliar with how to use Google Workspace. As a result, educating users on how to use Google Workspace was a top priority.

The approach

To begin the process, University Motors supplied HiView with a comprehensive list of users, with email addresses that spanned three different domain names.

Next, University Motors needed to grant the Technical Lead access to users’ accounts. From the client’s perspective, there are two options for sharing account access during IMAP data migrations—either 1) reset all user passwords and share that password, or 2) provide HiView with existing passwords. University Motors opted to provide HiView with the team’s existing passwords. The HiView Technical Lead then worked to resolve three conflicting accounts (email accounts that had been used to create accounts on Google services).

Finally, it was time to migrate. The HiView Technical Lead provisioned the new user accounts and initiated bulk migration of all email data, which took place over the course of one week with no user impact. The team then scheduled a date and time for the MX records cutover, which would mark the routing of all new emails to the Google Workspace accounts. The team selected a Friday when the delta migration (which migrated all emails received since bulk migration) would take place after hours. The following Monday, users logged into their new accounts and began using them without any reported issues.

To help the University Motors team use and optimize their new environment, HiView provided two live training sessions:

One Admin training session—This session was administered for the team’s one Google Admin. Key functions were covered, including how to create user accounts, rename users, reset passwords, add or remove aliases, and create groups, as well as basic application settings for Calendar, Drive, and Gmail.

One end user training session—All of the company’s workforce attended this session. As most of the team was unfamiliar with how to use the applications, the Change Management Lead focused on demonstrating the basic functions of Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Contacts.

User communications kept all employees up-to-date. These included a general announcement about the upcoming changes, a training session invitation, a recording of the session, and a reminder of the MX records cutover.