Exchange Public folder migrations to SharePoint

Migrating content from Exchange Public folders to SharePoint can be a complicated task.  Public Folders contain a variety of content (email, file attachments, distribution lists, contacts, tasks, etc.), so your first task is to figure out what will be migrated and where.  Some items will go into doc libraries; others will end up in lists.  You'll have to run an extractor tool to extract content out of PF's and then import that content into SharePoint. 

Microsoft doesn't offer a free migratory tool from PF to SharePoint, so you have to either write one yourself, use a community tool, or buy a third-party product. There are some free, open-source extractor and migratory tools available, but I'd recommend going with a third-party migration tool, such as the Quest or AvePoint products:

http://www.quest.com/public-folder-migrator-for-sharepoint

http://www.avepoint.com/exchange-public-folder-to-sharepoint-migration-docave

We need to consider the following points before migrating public folders to SharePoint:

·        Find out what folders and data items you have and who has permission to access them

·        Remove any unnecessary or outdated items from the folders

·        Remove unnecessary replicas of the folders

·        Design a SharePoint infrastructure that’s suitable for your needs (a topic that’s outside the scope of this article)

·        Migrate your public folder data to SharePoint

·        Decommission your public folder servers

Few questions based on the above theory

What kind of items we need to migrate from exchange folder?

·        Mail items

·        Calendars and Appointments (Events in Calendars, including recurring events)

·        Contacts and Distribution lists

·        Posts

·        Tasks

·        Notes

·        Documents

How many public folders you have and how important they are?

Do we have any custom tool to generate a list of all your folders and their last access and modification times? (Purpose behind this-That will immediately help you identify folders that haven’t been used in a long time)

Which mode of discussion is really important by migration point of view?

Because: Exchange public folders mix discussion functionality (which we normally use for email) and document storage. SharePoint uses two separate models for these two different types of data: Document libraries hold documents, and discussion lists hold threaded discussions. If you move Exchange public folder discussions to a document library, you lose the conversation threading from Exchange; if you move documents to a discussion list, you won’t have the versioning and check-in and check-out capabilities.

Thanks Amol again for content contrubution....!