SkyKick Migration Suites – 2015 in Review (part 1/2)

Even though we’re almost through Q1 of 2015, I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on our partners’ success last year and take a look ahead at the exciting things to come in 2016.

2015 was an incredible year for Office 365 and also a great year for SkyKick’s Migration products and partners.  As you’ve probably heard us say, we are maniacally focused on helping our partners grow their Office 365 business by making their cloud practice more efficient and profitable. So over the past twelve months, we added dozens of time-saving features and hundreds of improvements to our migration platform.   We also continued to receive high product satisfaction reviews – over 90% each month – from thousands of our partners around the world who use us for every migration they do.  Thanks for your partnership and for all the feedback you’ve provided as we continue to make the platform better for all.

It’s tough to pick just a few top milestones with so many to choose from. I decided the list HAD to have these 6:  Hands-Free migration, International features, Google enhancements, the “Three R’s” –Rooms, Resources and Rules, and the launch of our new Cloud Solution Provider products. I’ll speak about each briefly below.

A Hands-Free Migration Experience

We hold the end-user experience among our top priorities at SkyKick – and it’s one of the toughest challenges in any technology project. Eliminating the need for end-users to complete any critical steps on their own in the migration process was a top ambition since the inception of the Migration Application. Internally, this quest became known as “The Holy Grail” – a reflection of its value to the migration experience.

Most of the migration solutions on the market, and much of the documentation, focuses on ensuring a successful replication of data between source and Office 365. Obviously a high-quality data migration is critical, though the end-user experience is no less important. We are proud of how the SkyKick Migration Platform has always focused on the end user with:

  • Built-in automated end-user communications to smooth the process of gathering credentials and providing information and instructions
  • An Outlook Assistant that automates Outlook reconfiguration
  • Features that ensure consistency between the previous email experience and Office 365 by bringing over things like email signatures and address autocompletes

As easy as we made it, the ultimate goal was to be able to undertake a migration project without end-users even noticing. At the end of March, I am proud to say that we completed our quest by adding a “Hands-Free” capability to the SkyKick Migration Application.

Hands-Free is the ultimate white-glove migration. The entire process, from mail migration to Outlook reconfiguration can be completed without involving end-users. In fact, it can be completed with just one set of credentials. This makes for a much richer migration experience for the project manager, customer and end-user.

Since the Hands-Free scenario was made available, tens of thousands of users have been migrated to Office 365 without lifting a finger.

International Growth and Features

Going international was not just as set of feature updates, but an illustration of the global momentum behind the cloud transition, Office 365, and SkyKick Migrations.

2015 was a big year for the SkyKick Migration Application and our partners around the globe!

SkyKick Migration Application updates

  • Localized our end-user experience to French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Danish, and Japanese
  • Allowed migration projects to be configured in every time zone

International Growth

  • Opened up with distributors and staffing offices in dozens of new international markets
  • Extended our hours to make the world-class support experience that our partners love available in every time zone.

Check back next week for part 2 of this blog post that covers our Google Enhancements, the “Three R’s” (Rooms, Resources and Rules), Cloud Solution Provider features and a look ahead at the rest of 2016.

Bern Clark
Director of Product Management – Migration Products
Email Bern