Historically, electronic files have been stored on drives, in a hierarchical folder structure. This may be on a local desktop or laptop for individuals, but organisations have tended to use network drives.

With the rise of cloud storage, the traditional drive approach is being replaced with online document management systems. Many organisations are making this switch, and the pandemic and new hybrid working model has accelerated this change.

It’s much easier to work remotely and collaborate on a modern, cloud-based document management platform.

SharePoint, Microsoft’s flagship document management platform, is especially becoming more popular, due to the growth of the Microsoft 365. But before migrating any files, one of the fist tasks is to clean up the existing files. Here are some tips to consider.

‘Rip and replace’ instead of ‘lift and shift’

One of the most common mistakes is to take the existing structure and files and simply migrate them across. This means any mess you currently have is simply replicated, and many of the advantages of a modern platform like SharePoint are lost.

Implementing a new information structure that takes advantage of the new technology takes time but is much more beneficial in the long term.

Understand your starting point

Do you know how many files you are dealing with? How much data? When was the last time a file was modified?

There is a good chance you’re working with files that go way back, and so using an analysis tools can help you get an idea of what you’re dealing with.

Don’t be surprised to find that most of your data hasn’t been modified in years. One example is ‘Treesize’, which has a handy 1-month free trial.

Clean it up!

There will be plenty of data that can simply be deleted. There may also be a lot that should be deleted for data protection reasons.

Policies and guidance will help and some content may need archiving into a different system instead.

Work as a team

If you are migrating files for a group of users, get to understand what people want from the new structure.

t’s important not just to assume things should be structured a certain way because they always have been. Management support is key when migrating larger groups.

Information architecture is key

For large projects especially, an understanding of information architecture can really help.

For example, planning out the optimum sites and libraries structures; how data will be retained and archived; considering things like metadata and different content types. Also, consider how the migration will happen and which tools will be used.