Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 Migration

Situation

A global industrial manufacturing organisation initiated a major digital workplace transformation programme to migrate approximately 13,000 users from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. The migration formed part of a broader initiative to standardise collaboration and productivity platforms across the organisation.

During the early phases of the programme, the client encountered significant operational challenges within the existing Google Workspace environment. A backlog of more than 400 unresolved support tickets had accumulated, with some cases remaining open for over five months. These issues were affecting users across multiple business units and creating pressure on the internal IT team responsible for supporting day-to-day operations while simultaneously delivering the migration programme.

Key technical challenges included maintaining stable mailflow and routing, ensuring uninterrupted access to collaboration tools and shared resources, managing user accounts and device policies, and addressing data migration discrepancies. At the same time, the organisation needed to ensure continued access to business-critical applications and integrations dependent on the Google Workspace environment.

Given the scale and complexity of the environment, the client required experienced Google Workspace administration support at L2/L3 level to stabilise operations, reduce the ticket backlog and ensure the migration programme could continue without disrupting business operations.

Approach

Following the client’s request for support, Interval identified, resourced and onboarded a qualified Google Workspace administrator within 48 hours, enabling the client to rapidly reinforce their internal IT team during a critical phase of the migration programme.

Interval’s specialist provided hands-on L2 and L3 administration and support across the Google Workspace ecosystem, including Gmail, Google Drive, Google Groups and shared collaboration resources. A structured ticket triage and case review process was implemented to prioritise and resolve the oldest and most critical support cases first, enabling the backlog to be reduced systematically while maintaining responsiveness to new requests.

The engagement included troubleshooting complex technical issues, managing user accounts, permissions and security policies, and resolving operational issues affecting collaboration tools, device access and productivity applications. Direct support was provided to users to resolve login issues, access problems and device management challenges, ensuring minimal disruption to daily work.

Interval also worked closely with the client’s Microsoft 365 migration team to monitor mail routing, migration data integrity and platform stability, helping ensure that operational issues in the Google Workspace environment did not impact the migration process.

Outcome

By the conclusion of the engagement, Interval successfully reduced the support backlog from over 400 open tickets to approximately 60, exceeding the client’s expectations and restoring operational stability to the environment.

Mailflow and routing remained stable throughout the migration, while collaboration tools and shared resources continued to operate reliably for users across the organisation. Issues affecting data migration integrity and user access were identified and resolved, helping to improve the quality and reliability of the migration process.

Through rapid mobilisation, proactive support and close collaboration with internal teams, Interval enabled the client to stabilise its existing Google Workspace environment while continuing its large-scale migration to Microsoft 365, resulting in reduced operational risk and a significantly improved user experience during the transition.