Let's now take a look at the main tool for file migration, the Migration Manager. This tool is located in the SharePoint admin center and guides users through either a 3 or 6-step process depending upon where you're migrating from. Let's start with migrating from a file share. This follows a 3-step process. Step 1, set up migration manager agents. Step 2, scan the source file share. And step 3, create tasks and monitor the migration. Step 1, creates agents that will be responsible for completing the tasks you create in step 2. Organizations can do this by running a setup file on any computer or a VM they want to configure as a Migration Manager. Once the user runs the setup, they'll be asked for two sets of credentials, one set of credentials for the source of the files and the other is for the destination of the files. The source credentials need to have read access while the destination credentials need SharePoint admin permissions for the agent to properly be enabled. There are also a few requirements prior to setting up an agent, like PC hardware and endpoints. For a full list of requirements I've provided documentation below.

For now however, let's go into the SharePoint admin center and showcase exactly how to set up an agent. First thing we want to do is navigate over to the left-hand rail and choose migration. This brings us to the Migration Manager, and then we can choose where we'd like to migrate from. Like I mentioned earlier, we're going to start with just file shares for now. Now, from here we can clearly see that the first button available to us is to download the agent, and that's all we need to do. You can also navigate to the agents tab right here and add agents directly through here once they're downloaded. So, we'll go ahead and download the agent and go through this quick process. Once the agent is installed and you follow the prompts, this is what will come up. It will ask you to sign in with your SharePoint admin credentials as well as connect to your tenant. Once you do this, you then need to test your agent access to your SharePoint server file through the server file share path.

Once this is all tested and good to go, your agent should be set up and ready to use for the migration. Now, step 2 is where organizations can scan your file share and create tasks for agents to complete. Users enter the URL of the network file share like we just showcased, and then the URL of the SharePoint site destination, and those tasks will get distributed to your agents that you have set up. Once you enter the source file share, it automatically scans it and provides you an overview of that file share. 

After you've verified the source is able to be migrated, you can then move on to step 3, which is where we start migrating files. Let's go back to the Migration Manager and walk through creating a task for these agents. We'll go again to the migration tab, go back to the file share options, and then through here we can choose migrations. I can then choose add a task, and this will ask me what task I would like to add; either a single source and destination or a bulk migration. For now, we'll just do a single source destination and we'll hit 'Next'. It will then ask me for a file share that contains the content that I want to migrate. So, this is what I currently have in my on-premises that will be migrated to Microsoft 365. So, for now, I'll just give a dummy link just to showcase the process, and then hit 'Next'.

Once I've done that, I can choose a destination being One Drive, SharePoint, or Teams, I'll just click on SharePoint and hit 'Next'. And then it will ask me what SharePoint site I want to migrate the content to. Unfortunately, this is as far as I can get since I don't actually have a migration I need to complete. But once you enter your SharePoint site from here, you'll hit 'Next', and you can go through some other small options and then complete the migration task from there. Now, the steps I just showcased differ from other sources depending upon where you're migrating from. The Migration Manager supports migration from file shares, box, a Google Workspace, Dropbox, and Egnyte. With the exception of file shares, each of these follows a similar 6-step process for migration. Step 1, connect to the service and sign into your third-party service. Step 2, scan and assess; it scans the environment and generate reports.

Step 3, copy the migration's list, which is simply add to the migration's list. Step 4, review the destination paths, where it auto maps source paths to any matching destination paths. Step 5, map identities. Where you map groups and users from your environment to Microsoft 365 to migrate sharing settings. And step 6, migrate and monitor. After setting up the migration, you simply monitor the progress from the migration center. Once you've completed these steps, you've successfully migrated your files into the Microsoft environment.