In this article, we will review the migration steps of the Smartsheet -> Planner migration scenario.
Please note: All information in this article also applies to the Smartsheet -> Planner (basic plans) migration scenario.
To launch the migration from Smartsheet to Planner, you will need to take several steps.
Step 1: Connect to source and target system
To start the migration process, perform the following:
1. Open the Project Migrator home page, click on the Smartsheet system icon, and select the Smartsheet -> Planner or Smartsheet -> Planner (basic plans) scenario.
Alternatively, click on the Start Migration button and select the source and target systems manually.
2. Click the 'Connect' button to connect to your Smartsheet account.
3. Provide your credentials and log in to your Smartsheet account.
Please refer to the Connection Account Requirements article for more details.
4. Click Allow in the window that appears to allow Project Migrator access to your Smartsheet environment.
When the credentials are added once, they are encrypted and stored for your convenience after launching the migration. The next time you need to launch the migration process, you can select from the list of credentials added before.
If you need to change the account you have provided, click on the Change button.
5. On the next step, click Connect to connect the target Planner or Planner (basic plans) account.
Provide your credentials and log in to Planner using your Office 365 account.
If you connect to Planner for the first time, Global Administrator consent is required.
Before adding a connection for the first time, Office 365 tenant Global Administrator consent (Admin Consent) is required to grant Project Migrator app permissions to access Office 365. Admin Consent should be granted to Project Migrator only once. When the consent is granted by Global Admin, any other Planner Account (that meets the requirements described in the 'Account requirements' article) can be used to add more connections within the same Office 365 tenant.
If you use an account that does not have Administrator permissions to add a Planner connection for the first time, the 'Need Admin Approval' window will be opened instead. The 'Need Admin Approval' window may be opened after the login attempt. This window appears in case it is not allowed by your organization for users to add apps to the Office 365 tenant without admin approval.
In this case, contact your Planner application Global Administrator for Admin Consent, it is required to grant Project Migrator app permissions to access Office 365.
When the credentials are added once, they are encrypted and stored for your convenience. The next time when you need to launch the migration process, you can select from the list of credentials added before.
If you need to change the account you have provided click on the 'Change' button.
When the source and target systems are added and connected, you can proceed to the next step and select source data for migration.
Step 2: Select Source Data
Project Migrator allows selecting all data for migration or only the required items from the list.
'All' option is selected by default. If you select the 'All' option, all Smartsheet sheets to which the source connection account has access will be migrated.
'Selected' option allows migrating only the sheets which you select from the available sheet list will be migrated.
Click the 'Selected' button.
The 'Available sheets' window will be opened. There are several fields on this page that you can use to filter the information out and make the selection faster.
Select the required sheets from the list and click the 'Add Selected' button.
Please note: If you have not purchased any subscription plan yet, a free plan (for 2 projects) will be applied. If you have exceeded the limit of projects that you can select for migration according to your subscription plan (free or paid one), you can upgrade your plan from this page directly by clicking on the 'Upgrade to (number) of projects plan' button.
For more information, please refer to the 'Project Migrator Subscriptions' article.
When the items are selected, you can proceed to the next step: Step 3: Object Mapping.
Step 3: Object Mapping
1. Migration settings.
Microsoft 365 Group Creation Mode: In this section, you can select whether to create a separate group for each Plan, create groups with the source workspace name, or create all Plans in one group (new or existing).
'Create groups using source workspace names': this group creation mode allows preserving source workspace names for the selected Sheets in the target. Target Microsoft 365 groups will be created with the same names as the source workspaces. The following users will be added to the created M365 group:
- Target account will be added to the Microsoft 365 group as owner and member if a new group is created if the group already exists, then the target account will be added as a member.
- Workspace owner is added to the Microsoft 365 group as a group owner and member.
- Workspace members (users and contacts workspace are shared to) are added to the Microsoft 365 group as members.
- All selected sheet owners are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group owners and members.
- All selected sheet members are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group members.
Please note: If personal sheets are selected for migration or shared to the user Sheets, but the corresponding workspace is not shared, the Microsoft 365 group with the name ‘Sheets’ will be created, and those sheets will be added to this group. Only selected sheets owners and members will be added to this group as owners/members accordingly.
Please note: If there is an existing group with the same name and mail nickname in the target tenant, but the connection account is not a member or an owner of that group, a new group will be created with a bit different mail nickname.
'Create groups using Sheet names': if this option is selected, each project will have a separate group created. The groups will be created with the same names as the Sheet names in this case.
If a group with the same name already exists in Planner, a new group will not be created. Project Migrator will find this group by name and use it for migration (taking into account the setting below 'Create new or merge with existing Projects').
The following users will be added to the created Office 365 group:
- Target account will be added to the Microsoft 365 group as owner and member if a new group is created, if a group already exists then the target account will be added as a member.
- Workspace owner is added to the Microsoft 365 group as a group owner and member.
- Workspace members (users and contacts workspace are shared to) are added to the Microsoft 365 group as members.
- The selected sheet owner is added to the Microsoft 365 group as a group owner and member.
- The selected sheet members are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group members.
If the 'Create all Projects in one group' option is selected, then all projects will be added to the same group during migration.
In the Group Name field, you can provide the name of an existing group or a new group name to create a new group during migration.
The following users will be added to the created Microsoft 365 group:
- Target account will be added to the Microsoft 365 group as owner and member if a new group is created if the group already exists then the target account will be added as a member.
- All workspace owners are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group owners and members.
- All workspace members (users and contacts workspace is shared to) are added to the M365 group as members.
- All selected sheet owners are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group owners and members.
- All selected sheet members (users and contacts sheet are shared) are added to the Microsoft 365 group as group members.
Please note: (valid for all settings): if the workspace or sheet is shared with a contact from another user contact list, then this contact will not be listed in the user mapping and will not be added to the target M365 group. Source account can migrate only contacts from his own Contact list.
Project creation mode: In this section, you can select how plans should be created if there are Plans in Planner instance with the same names as Sheets in the source system.
'Create new or merge with existing ones' option allows creating new Plans or merging the data to the existing Plans with the same names as the source Sheets if any.
'Create new and remove existing Plans before creating' option allows creating new Plans from scratch deleting the existing ones with the same names as the source Sheets if any. In this case, existing Plans with names that match selected source Sheets names will be removed together with all their tasks.
2. Sheet Field Mapping
In this section, you can review Sheet field mapping. The Sheet name corresponds to the Project in Planner.
3. Column Mapping
This section is used to map the row columns from source Sheets with the target Planner task fields.
You can review which column values are migrated from the source Smartsheet system to the target Planner system.
Default columns will be mapped automatically by name and compatible type once the connection to the source and target systems is established and items to migrate are selected. In case multiple source columns compatible with a target field are found by the name, they all are added for mapping.
It is also possible to add custom fields for the mapping. All the compatible source columns and target fields available for mapping are listed and can be selected in the drop-down menus of Column Mapping.
You can also check the 'Multiple' checkbox and select several columns for mapping.
If you select several source columns for mapping, you can also select the 'Join Values' option. In this case, values from all the selected source columns will be added to the target field.
In case the 'Use First Found' option is selected, the values from the first mapped row column found in the source Smartsheet will be migrated to the mapped target item field.
If a custom column that allows having multiple custom values (e.g., field of the Dropdown type) is selected for mapping, check the 'Use Custom Lookup' option to map particular values of the source row column with values of the target field.
If you do not need to migrate any of the field values, you can remove such fields from the mapping.
Please note: By default, Project Migrator will use the Sheet Primary Column field to map with the Title target field. In this case, your primary columns from all Smartsheet Sheets will be mapped to the Title field on the target. If needed, the Sheet Primary Column can be deleted and you can use any other compatible field (for example Task Name or Title) to map with the Title field.
If there is a need to map the primary column for some Sheets to the Title field, and Task Name/Title or any other compatible field for other Sheets with the Title field on the target, several fields can be selected in the source field value, but their position will be taken into account during migration.
If the Sheet Primary Column field is selected as the first one, primary columns will be taken for mapping for all Sheets. If other fields are selected first, and then the Sheet Primary Column field, then Project Migrator will map other selected source fields first, and for those Sheets where there are no such fields, the primary column will be taken for mapping with the Title target field.
The task field mapping can be edited and adjusted to a particular migration scenario to include all needed source task fields or remove the unnecessary ones. For more details, please refer to this article.
4. Task Migration Settings
Microsoft Planner allows adding a maximum of 10 attachments per task via API. Using the Task Migration Settings it is possible to choose how the rest of the attachments (if there are more than 10) will be added to Planner.
Migrate excessive attachments to task Notes if this option is selected, all attachments from the source will be added to the Documents -> Task Attachments folder of the Planner SharePoint Site. Ten first attachments will be added to the Planner task. For the rest of the attachments, the links to the files from the Documents folder will be added to the Notes Planner field.
Skip excessive attachments if this option is selected, all attachments from the source will be added to the Documents -> Task Attachments folder of the Planner SharePoint Site. Also, the first ten attachments will be added to the Planner task.
5. Users Mapping
This section is used to map the users from Smartsheet to the target Planner system.
Please note: User mapping will include all Smartsheet environment users and all contacts from the Contact list of the source connection account.
Please note: The users cannot be migrated from Smartsheet to the target Planner environment. User accounts should already exist in the target environment (in the Active directory of your Planner tenant) before the migration starts. In this case, Project Migrator will find the required users by their accounts and will map them automatically to migrate the assignments and other resource data to the target Planner environment.
If there is no corresponding account on the target system (Planner), then the line with such a user will be highlighted in red and will have a 'Not Mapped' status. Such users will not be taken for migration.
If there is incomplete correspondence for some of the users (for example, the email is the same but different user names), they will have the ‘Partial Match’ status and will be marked with yellow color. Pay attention to such lines and correct the mapping if needed.
If complete correspondence is found, such users will be marked with green color with the 'Match' status.
You can review the mapping summary at the top of the section.
User Mapping can be exported to an Excel file. You can map the users in the Excel file if needed and upload the mapping from the Excel file to Project Migrator, User Mapping section.
Step 4 - Launching the migration process
When you complete all steps: set up the connection between source and target, select data for migration, and perform mapping, you can launch the migration process.
Please note: Planner sends notifications to all group members about comments, assignments, and when users are added to groups. Because of this, users may receive numerous notifications during data migration to MS Planner. Please refer to this article to disable them before the migration starts: How to turn off email notifications sent during migrations to Planner.
To launch the migration process click on the Proceed button under the 'User Mapping' section.
The Migration Summary window will be opened. Review the information in the Migration Information section and click the 'Start Migration' button to launch the migration process.
Please note: If you have not purchased any subscription plan yet, a free plan (for 2 projects) will be applied. If you have exceeded the limit of projects that you can select for migration according to your subscription plan (free or paid one) and did not upgrade your plan while selecting the projects, you will see the 'Proceed to Checkout' button instead of the 'Start Migration' one. You can upgrade your plan by clicking on this button and then launching the migration process.
Data Migration Summary window will display the Summary Information and the progress for the migrated groups and Projects, as well as Migration Settings and Mapping. You can close this window.
Also, when migration is completed, the migrated sheets can be opened and reviewed in the target system from the Migration Summary page.
