Learn About SharePoint Document Migration Challenges
June 23rd, 2010
1. Dealing with Particular characters and Lengths in Folder and File namesSharePoint will not accept specified special characters (tilde, amount sign, %, ampersand, asterisk, braces, backslash, colon, angle brackets, query mark, slash, pipe, quotation mark. that’s a good deal of unique characters and certainly, it is not that uncommon to discover some of these in filenames in filesystems. Also, SharePoint doesn’t make it possible for folder and file name lengths being longer than 128 characters in WSS 3.0. These aspects alone can be such a pain in the course of migration of folders & files that contain special characters and long names. Windows folder / file names with special characters have to be replaced with SharePoint acceptable characters to avoid manual work in renaming sharepoint development. For files that contain special characters based on selected logic or a set of rules, this can easily be dealt with by using scripts or some tools. However, if the files contain exceptional characters in a random manner with no orderliness about them, it can be a laborious task to rename the folders and files before migrating them to SharePoint. Similarly, long folder and file names have to become truncated to the prescribed length before moving them to SharePoint. A few nasty folders / files in random can put a spoke in a well planned, large and orderly migration. Here are two useful links to know more about SharePoint specific characters, limits on URL lengths and long filenames.2. Maintaining the same folder / file structure when migrating to SharePointMost companies will want to retain the same structures for files and folders to maintain operational consistency as well as business continuity. For example, an organization currently using a traditional Windows based file server platform for document collaboration could be deploying SharePoint as the collaboration platform for the users. In such situation, it will be easier to maintain the same folder and file structure in the newly setup SharePoint library without changing the user experience in handling folders and files. It makes the navigation intuitive, eases migration process, minimizes user training and improves operational efficiency.3. Migrating a select set of document types / formats such as doc, xls, ppt, jpeg, dwg, pdf etc.Sometimes, only documents of particular types (or formats) need to become moved to SharePoint libraries depending on the document templates or content types or file types allowed to enhance the document management framework. Everything else needs to be filtered. To selectively move files based on their types will require some programming, especially so if there are large folder trees (nested folders).
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