Deployment planning checklist for Office 365

When you move an enterprise organization to Office 365, it's important to plan exactly what steps you want to take, when to perform them, and who will perform them. This checklist will help your organization as you plan and prepare for a migration to Office 365. The phases and steps in the checklist are aligned with the guidance provided by the Onboarding Center. Feel free to adapt this checklist to your organization's needs.

Want help deploying to your organization? If you have more than 50 users, go to the Onboarding Center, you can also sign in and use the Deployment advisors for Office 365 services.

Want someone to walk you through the process or answer questions? Contact Office 365 for business support

Sample checklist for an enterprise deployment

Deployment Tasks /Events	Start Date	Finish Date	Resources	Dependencies
Determine your deployment goals
With your internal and external stakeholders: Agree on scope and timeline Agree on project tracking mechanism Develop success criteria and a communication / training plan
Inventory your current environment and make key deployment decisions
Inventory your current environment
Collect the number of user accounts (login names, email addresses)
Collect the number and size of mailboxes (including shared mailboxes and conference rooms)
Collect client versions and configurations (browsers, operating systems, office applications, mobile versions, and so on)
Collect details on your network settings (DNS hosts, proxy and/or firewall configuration, internet connectivity)
Collect information on file storage locations (file shares, intranet file storage)
Collect details about any intranet sites that you plan to migrate
Collect online meeting and Instant Messaging systems that you plan to migrate
Collect the details about any applications that are integrated with existing systems (mail enabled applications, workflow, CRM, and so on)
Make key deployment decisions
How will you create and/or synchronize accounts?
How will user accounts be authenticated?
Will you migrate any data and how will that migration occur (email and files)?
Will there be any short or long term integration with on-premises systems?
What devices will users be able to connect from (remotely, from mobile devices, or just from your network)?
Fix potential deployment blockers
With tools and guidance from Microsoft:
Clean up active directory accounts (guidance and tool)
Get your data ready for a migration (email and files)
Get your network ready (guidance and tools)
Update client software versions (guidance)
Set up Office 365 services to work for your organization
Configure your Office 365 subscription
Verify the domains you want to use with your subscription
Configure application settings (email, instant messaging, online meetings, web collaboration, file storage, Yammer)
Optionally prepare for directory synchronization
Optionally prepare for single sign-on
Prepare your organization
Prepare service desk for upcoming migration
Test the deployment and optional migration process
Tell your users about the upcoming changes and how it will affect them
Roll out to users
Setup accounts and mailboxes
Add your users and assign the appropriate licenses
Optionally migrate data (email, and files, and so on)
Validate functionality then complete final steps
Migrate DNS settings to point to Office 365
Tell your users when they can start using Office 365
Reconfigure client systems to connect to Office 365 (Office, Outlook, Outlook for Mac, Mobile Devices)

Here's a short link you can use to come back: https://aka.ms/deploy365checklist

See Also

Office 365 integration with on-premises environments

Set up Office 365 for business

Security in Office 365 whitepaper

Managing Office 365 endpoints