You’ve migrated 1000s of users. The emails are syncing, the files are populated in Google Drive, and the calendar invites are showing up. Is the job done? Not exactly!
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After you migrated users, calendars, emails and files —technically, the Microsoft to Google migration is a “success”. But what about the Invoice Approval flow that Finance uses every single day? If your email works, but your Finance team can’t pay vendors because the approval routing is stuck in a Power Automate flow that no longer exists, business stops.
The most common fear for IT leaders during a Microsoft-to-Google migration isn’t “Did we lose an email?”, it’s “What business logic did we break?”
This guide provides a pragmatic, actionable roadmap to ensure business continuity. We’re looking beyond simple data migration to process migration, prioritizing five most common workflows you’d need to rebuild in a new productivity environment.
The "Big 5" Critical Workflows: A Rebuilding Guide
When you switch environments away from Microsoft, you aren’t just changing email providers; you’re changing your automation engine.
Here is how to map your Microsoft automated processes to Google-first architecture using Zenphi.
1. Leave Request Approvals
- The Old Way: SharePoint Form to Power Automate to Approval.
- The New Way: Google Form to Zenphi Flow.
The Upgrade: Instead of a static SharePoint list, use Zenphi to automatically calculate days remaining based on a Google Sheets lookup and update the shared Team Calendar instantly upon approval.
Video Guide: Leave Requests Approvals For Google Workspace — Sample Workflow
The #1 Workflow Automation Solution For Google Workspace Environment
Zenphi is the must-have solution for workflow automation in Google Workspace environment that enables your team to build granular automations, trigger processes from any event in Google Directory, Group, Workspace itself or Google Audit event, integrate your own scripts — all without the headache of debugging and maintaining code.
2. Expense Approvals
- The Old Way: Power Automate Approval Center.
- The New Way: Zenphi Tasks with automated Gmail email reminders
The Upgrade: Approval workflows shouldn’t require logging into a portal. With Zenphi, you can assign an approval task to a manager (dynamically selected from Google Directory), set up the number of email reminders they will get and draft an escalation path — what to do in case the approval expiration date has passed.
Video Guide: Automated Multi-Step Approvals In Google Workspace — Sample Workflow
3. Document Generation
- The Old Way: Word Plugins or VBA Macros.
- The New Way: Document generation from Doc Templates (allows to generate a Doc and or/a PDF) — plus using AI to generate copy, if needed
The Upgrade: Zenphi’s Document generation feature replaces clunky plugins. You can dynamically insert client data into a Google Doc template using placeholders (Watch a 30-sec guide), handle conditional clauses (e.g., if State = CA, add privacy clause), and convert to PDF automatically. Also, multiple AI models are at your disposal to generate copy wherever needed.
Video Guide: Using AI For Document Generation In Google Workspace — Sample Workflow
30-sec Guide: Generating Documents From Google Doc Template Automatically
4. Onboarding Workflow
- The Old Way: Active Directory Scripts + Manual Ticket updates.
- The New Way: Google Directory Automation with Zenphi
The Upgrade: This is your highest ROI workflow. A Zenphi flow can be triggered from a “New Hire” form submission, from a Google Directory activity or from an event in your HRIS. It can proceed with creating Google Workspace user, adding them to Groups, provision Drive folders, standardise signature, email their manager — all without IT touching the keyboard.
Video Guide: User Onboarding In Google Workspace — Sample Workflow
5. IT Ticketing & Helpdesk
- The Old Way: Outlook Rules & Shared Mailboxes.
- The New Way: Self-service workflow automated with Zenphi
The Upgrade: Zenphi allows you to build a self-service system for users to request Google Group creation, access to folders and assets, download Google Chrome extensions and more. Learn how Gordon Food Service IT team used Zenphi to build this automated system and reduced IT workfload by 86%.
Case Study: Gordon Food Service Reduces IT Workload By 86% Using Zenphi-Driven Automation For IT Ticketing
CASE STUDY
Gordon Food Service Reduces IT Workload by 85% with Zenphi
Discover how one of North America's largest foodservice distributors automated Google Workspace admin tasks, slashed support tickets by 83%, and secured their environment with no-code workflows.
The "Day 1" Workflow Recovery Checklist
Before you flip the switch, run through this recovery guide to ensure your automation landscape is ready.
"In The Trenches" Migration Advice: 10 Lessons from 100s of User Migrations
Migrating large numbers of users and amounts of data teaches you lessons that official documentation often skips.
We talked to >100 IT Admins who have not only survived the process, but taken the necessary steps to thrive. Here are their top 10 tips:
1. Pre-Flight Cleanup
Force users to clean house before you migrate. Ask them to delete spam, empty trash, and most importantly, download and remove attachments larger than 25MB. Most migration tools have a hard limit here and will error out.
2. The "Zombie" Account Test
Don’t start with your CEO’s account. Reactivate an old/departed staff account and use it for test migrations. This reveals folder structure bugs and “large data” issues without disrupting active VIPs.
3. Exempt System Folders
Your migration tool will try to move everything. Manually configure it to skip system folders like “Junk,” “RSS Feeds,” and “Sync Issues” to avoid cluttering Gmail with useless labels.
4. The "Application Impersonation" Role
You do not need to reset user passwords to migrate their data. Ensure your Microsoft Admin account has the “Application Impersonation” role enabled; this grants backend access to all user inboxes for seamless transfer.
5. The Hidden Throttle (EWS)
This is the #1 cause of slow migrations. You must manually lift the EWS (Exchange Web Services) throttling policy in the Microsoft admin portal. Search for “EWS Throttling” in the help assistant, run the test, and select “Lift Policy Temporarily.”
6. Concurrency is Speed
It seems counter-intuitive, but migrating more users at once is faster. The Microsoft throttling limit (often 150MB) is per mailbox. Therefore, 100 concurrent migrations = 100x the aggregate throughput.
7. The "Point of No Return"
Once a batch migration starts, stopping it is messy. Avoid “stopping and starting” for different groups if possible. Commit to the batch to avoid “stuck” states.
8. The "99% Lie"
The tool will hit 99% and sit there. Do not cancel it. This is when the tool is applying labels and organizing folders. This “last 1%” can take days for users with complex folder structures.
9. Idempotency is Your Friend
If a migration fails or you need to re-run it, do it. The tools are generally idempotent… they check the source against the destination and will skip emails that already exist, only moving the missing items.
10. Patience is a Feature
A 500GB migration can take two solid weeks. The progress bar will move slowly. This is normal. Plan your “cutover” date accordingly.
Spotlight: Automating Employee Offboarding (A Zero-Touch Strategy)
While onboarding sets the stage, Offboarding users in Google Workspace is where security risks happen. It takes an average IT admin 45 minutes to manually offboard a user. With Zenphi, it takes 0 minutes.
You can build a single flow in Zenphi that executes these steps instantly upon an HR trigger (like a Google Form submission or an HRIS status change). These are the steps of the workflow you can automate in 10 minutes in Zenphi:
- Trigger: HR system updates/ Changes In Google Dircetory or Google Group/ Form submission
- Action: Update Recovery email — updates the recovery email and phone number for departing user to prevent the former employee from regaining access to their Google Account.
- Action: Change Password — resets password
- Action: Sign Out Of All Devices – terminates user's sessions
- Action: Suspend A User — stops emails from being delivered to the user.
- Two actions — List Access To The Third party Apps and then Revoke Access
- Action: Remove a User From Groups
- Action: Revome a User From Groups
- Two actions — "List files” and then “Transfer files" to transfer user's files to their manager or IT
- Action "Change License" — to avoid paying for an active Google Workspace license
- Add Delay For X Days (for example, 90 days) and then `— Delete User Account
Video Guide: User Offboarding In Google Workspace — Sample Workflow With Zenphi
Ready to Rebuild?
Migration is the perfect time to audit your processes. Don’t just “lift and shift” your old, broken workflows. Rebuild them smarter, faster, and more securely in Google Workspace — with Zenphi!
