Unnie Ayilliath

SharePoint product has had a very drastic transition over the past few years. Many features are deprecated and many solution practices which we used to follow are no more supported. So this blog will give you details of the things to watch out for or to be remediated before you move into cloud.

No farm solutions 

As you already know there is no provision to deploy any farm level solutions in SharePoint online. If you are still developing any farm solutions you need to stop right now if you are thinking of moving to cloud anytime in future. Well what are the options you have now. The only option available is to rewrite those components using client side object model either using C# or JavaScript and packaging things as an Add-in or use Sandbox solution(only JavaScript here and  C# code inside sandbox is unsupported). If you have big investments in SharePoint then it is worth to try out SPCAF Migration Assessment in your farm.

No Sandbox code 

This was misinterpreted a lot when Microsoft announced deprecation of Sandbox code solutions. Basically you can still use and create new sandbox solutions but you should not write any C# code in it. Now what does this mean?-  No visual web parts not even with only JavaScript in it coz always the web part will have web part classes. No feature event receivers with C# code.  You can still use Sandbox solutions to declaratively create content types,site columns,lists etc or for deploying any ribbon action, deploying artifacts to style library etc.

No public sites (Anonymous sites)

If you are having an extranet built on SharePoint with anonymous public sites, then those site cannot be migrated to Office365 because Microsoft has officially stopped Public sites feature in Office365. This leaves you with options to move those sites to Office365 partner website (See Use a public website with Office365) or you can go for a hybrid model with all public sites inside your on-premise farm.

Assess your farm before migration

You can use below tools to assess your farm for farm solutions and other configurations which can cause you problems while migrating to office 365.

1. SPCAF Code Migration tool paid tool but gives you a detailed report and guidance on how to transform your current solutions into cloud compatible solution.
2. SharePoint Migration Assessment tool (SMAT): This is a free tool made available by Microsoft. Run this tool in your farm and it will scan your farm and give you insights on the solutions which will impact your cloud migration.