site collection upgrade policy and procedure

Microsoft SharePoint Online DedicatedSite Collection Upgrade to SharePoint 2013 Policy and ProceduresVersion 16.1 Published April 2015

Microsoft SharePoint Online Dedicated – Site Collection Upgrade to SharePoint 2013 Policy and Procedures – v 16.1

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ContentsIntroduction........................................................................................................................................ 4

Phases of site collection upgrade....................................................................................................4

Phase one – Test................................................................................................................................6

Use preview sites............................................................................................................................6

Create a preview site.......................................................................................................6

Preview site collections less than 20 gigabytes (GB)........................................................7

Preview site collections greater than 20 GB (up to 100 GB).............................................7

Preview site collections greater than 100 GB...................................................................9

Delete preview sites.........................................................................................................9

View preview site long URLs.............................................................................................9

Expected behavior and what to test.............................................................................................10

Need support help?.......................................................................................................................11

Phase two – Upgrade site collections to 2013...................................................................................12

Upgrade your My Site host............................................................................................................12

Use the Service Administration portal............................................................................12

Submit SPO-D 13-207 (Upgrade My Site Host/Set Compatibility Mode to 2013).............14

What to expect after the My Site Host upgrade..............................................................14

My Site host roll back options.........................................................................................14

Upgrade site collections individually.............................................................................................14

What to expect after site collections are upgraded........................................................15

Confirm your site collections are queued for upgrade...................................................................15

Site collection roll back options......................................................................................17

Set the compatibility mode to 2013..............................................................................................17

What to expect after compatibility mode is set to 2013.................................................18

2013 compatiblity mode roll back options......................................................................18

Appendix A – Site collection upgrade support model........................................................................19

Address issues and errors..............................................................................................19

Submit a Service Request..............................................................................................19

SharePoint 2013 product bugs and Cumulative Updates................................................20

Appendix B – Further resources........................................................................................................21

IntroductionThe site collection upgrade process includes:


Individual site collection upgrades from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013 mode. My Site host site collection upgrades. 2013 site creation mode for newly created sites.

At the database upgrade milestone, site collections are set to 2013 compatibility mode. To take full advantage of SharePoint 2013 functionality, existing site collections need to be reviewed, tested, and upgraded.

Note: SharePoint Online requires that all site collections, including the My Site host, be upgraded within three months (maximum six months) after completion of the database upgrade.

Phases of site collection upgradeThe upgrade process has two phases:

Phase one: Test Phase two: Upgrade site collections to 2013

Each phase must be completed before moving to the next phase.

Phase one

Test

Phase two

Upgrade site collections to 2013

Use preview sites Expected behavior and what to

test Need support help?

Upgrade your My Site host Upgrade site collections

individually Confirm your site

collections are queued for upgrade

Set the compatibility mode to 2013

To make the upgrade process as seamless as possible, review and determine the dates for the following readiness tasks.

Readiness tasksTarget completion date

Service Administration portal 2013 site collection upgrades (Portals, Team Sites, Partner Access) completed by:

My Sites host upgrade completed by:

Set SharePoint 2013 site creation mode in Team Site Web application completed by:


DB upgrade Test Upgrade site collections

Set SharePoint 2013 site creation mode in Portal Web application completed by:

Set SharePoint 2013 site creation mode in Partner Access Web application (if applicable) completed by:


Phase one – Test

Phase one includes:

Use preview sites Expected behavior and what to test Need support help?

Use preview sitesPreview sites are copies of SharePoint 2010 Production site collections that you can add the SharePoint 2013 user interface (UI) to without affecting the original site. These site collections are referred to as preview sites or evaluation sites. You can start creating preview sites one week after your database upgrade. This period of time is called the quiet week. It takes place after the upgrade completes until the end of day the following Friday Pacific Standard Time (PST).

Note: During your quiet week, no changes can occur on your farm.

Note: Long URLs can only be created as preview sites in the Pre-production Environment (PPE). For more information, see View preview site long URLs.

Create a preview site

When you create a preview site, you use the process that aligns with the size of the site collection you want to preview as shown in the following illustration.



Preview site collections less than 20 gigabytes (GB)

For Production site collections less than 20 GB that haven’t been upgraded to the SharePoint 2013 UI, submit Configuration Request (CR) SPO-D 13-210 (Request Evaluation Sites in Production). This allows 250 MB and 50 sites to be submitted twice a month. Contact your service delivery manager (SDM) for more details.

Important:

You can include multiple site collections in one Evaluation Site Request template, as long as each site collection is less than 20 GB.

You can submit two Evaluation Site Request templates each calendar month. The requested preview site collections are created for you in Production during a change

window.

Preview site collections greater than 20 GB (up to 100 GB)

For Production site collections over 20 GB that haven’t been upgraded to the 2013 UI, preview sites are created in the Pre-production Environment (PPE) using a two-step process:

1. Submit SPO-D-13-002 (Site Collection Migration from Production to PPE) to refresh the specified site collections from Production to the PPE so that you have Production content to test in the PPE.

Important: One SPOD-13-002 Configuration Request (CR) can be submitted per month.


http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9826661



Note: Exceptions can be made to support site collection upgrade work.

Note: Long URLs can be included in this process. For more information, see View preview site long URLs.

A maximum of 300 GB can be requested per CR. SharePoint Online’s ability to refresh site collections is constrained by the space

available in the PPE.

Note: When PPE capacity is reached, you may be asked to delete content to help free up space.

If you exceed the maximum allocated PPE site capacity by creating preview sites, SharePoint Online reserves the right to perform the following actions:

o Delete the preview sites from largest to smallest in order until the appropriate capacity buffer has been reached.

o Purge the SQL evaluation queue to stop new preview sites from being created.

Note: You can prevent exceeding the maximum PPE site capacity by upgrading your site collections instead of of creating preview sites.

2. When the CR process completes, the requested site collections from Production are available in the PPE. The Site Collection admin can then create the preview site in the PPE using the following steps:a) Navigate to the site collection you will create a prevew site for.b) Select the pink ribbon (Start Now > Try a Demo Upgrade) OR go to Site Collection

Settings (Site Action > Site Settings > Try a Demo Upgrade) in the PPE.

An automated timer job then runs and makes a copy of the site in the PPE. A second timer job upgrades the site collection after the site has been copied.

Note: These steps can take up to 24 hours.

If email is enabled in the PPE, a confirmation email is sent to the Site Collection admin when the preview site is ready.

Note: Configuration Request SPO-D 13-113 (Configure Outgoing Email Settings) can be used to enable email in the PPE. This step is optional. Contact your service delivery manager (SDM) for more details.

If email isn't enabled, look for the previews site in the PPE about 24 hours after creating it. It will have -eval appended to its URL.


http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=526493

Preview site collections greater than 100 GB

Submit a New Feature CR if you need to create an preview site for a Production site collection that’s over 100 GB. If there’s space available on PPE, SharePoint Online copies the site collection from Production to the PPE and creates the preview site for you in PPE. Contact your SDM for more details.

Note: When PPE capacity is reached, you may be asked to delete content to help free up space.

Delete preview sites

Preview sites require as much storage space as the site they originate from. This means you may run into space constraints.

Preview sites are automatically deleted in 30 days through an automated SharePoint timer job. If you finish testing before 30 days, a Site Collection admin can delete the site using the Site Settings page like any other SharePoint site collection.

Note: If a preview site is needed for more than 30 days, you must let the original preview site expire and then create another one.

View preview site long URLs

The maximum URL length in SharePoint is 260 characters. When you create a preview site, five additional characters,-eval, are added to the end of the site collection’s URL. To see which sites are over 255 characters, use the Long URL report in the Service Administration portal (Site Collections > Preview Site > Long URL Report) as shown in the following illustrations.


For more information, see Using the SharePoint Online Service Administration Portal (2013).

Note: The only way to correct an URL that is too long is to move the site collection closer to the root site collection before creating the preview site.

Expected behavior and what to test

When testing upgraded site collections (including preview sites, which are upgraded copies of existing Production sites), pay particular attention to branding and site provisioning customizations. These will likely need to be updated to work in SharePoint 2013 prior to upgrading site collections in Production. For testing and troubleshooting guidance, see:

o Changes from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607742.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn307721.aspx

o SharePoint Online Upgrade Guidance for Developers o Review site collections upgraded to SharePoint 2013

For additional information on preview sites, see the “Create an upgrade evaluation site” section in the Upgrade a site collection to SharePoint 2013 topic.

Need support help?If you encounter issues or errors while creating or testing preview sites, first review both Troubleshoot site collection upgrade issues in SharePoint 2013 and the information in this topic. If your issue is not addressed, open a Service Request (SR) for assistance. Identify that you have an issue related to 2013 upgrades so that the SR is routed correctly. Contact your SDM for more details.


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219648.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219650(v=office.15).aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219531(v=office.15).aspx

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=397487

Phase two – Upgrade site collections to 2013

Phase two includes:

Upgrade your My Site host Upgrade site collections individually Confirm your site collections are queued for upgrade Set the compatibility mode to 2013

After you’ve tested the impact of site collection upgrades and addressed any associated issues, you now begin to upgrade your Production site collections.

Note: Perform each step of phase two to complete the upgrade to SharePoint 2013. The steps can be performed in any order.

Upgrade your My Site hostYour My Site host is the root site collection for the My Sites Web application. After you upgrade it, all personal site collections are automatically upgraded when a user visits their My Site.

You can do this one of two ways:

Use the Service Administration portal Submit SPO-D 13-207 (Upgrade My Site Host/Set Compatibility Mode to 2013)

Use the Service Administration portal

1. Open the Service Administration portal.

Note: For more information, see Using the SharePoint Online Service Administration Portal (2013).

2. Click Reporting > Site Collection Report.





3. In the Web Application box, locate and select your My Site host. This provides a list of Production My Sites, which includes the root site collection (host).

4. Follow the steps listed in Upgrading Site Collections to complete this process. There’s also a video that demonstrates the preview and upgrade process just before the Upgrading Site Collections section.


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn307719.aspx#bkmk_UpSiteColl



Submit SPO-D 13-207 (Upgrade My Site Host/Set Compatibility Mode to 2013)

1. Get a copy of this Configuration Request (CR): SPOD 13-207 (Upgrade My Site Host/Set Compatibility Mode to 2013).

2. Complete this CR with your SDM and then submit it to SharePoint Online.3. SharePoint Online then upgrades the My Site host in the Pre-production Environment (PPE)

and Production environment at the same time.

Note: This change occurs within in 7 (seven) business days from the time the request is confirmed.

What to expect after the My Site Host upgrade

Following the upgrade, a user sees a dialog box with the following options when they first visit their My Site:

Let’s get socialo If the user selects this and then clicks OK, their My Site document libraries are copied

into folders under OneDrive for Business.o If the user doesn’t select this or they click No Thanks, their My Site document libraries

are copied as document libraries (apps) rather than folders. One library is all you need

o If the user selects this and then clicks OK, their My Site document libraries are copied into folders under OneDrive for Business.

o If the user doesn’t select this or they click No Thanks, their My Site document libraries are copied as document libraries (apps) rather than folders.

After these decisions, the user then sees a message saying their My Site is being upgraded.

When the upgrade starts, the user’s My Site remains available for use during the upgrade process. A “Getting the most out of SharePoint" email is auto-generated and sent to your users as one of the last steps of the My Site provisioning process. This email message can’t be modified, but an Exchange transport rule can be used to intercept it.

My Site host roll back options

Important: After the My Sites are upgraded to SharePoint 2013, they can't go back to SharePoint 2010 My Sites. This means that although roll back is an option, it can lead to significant data loss.

Upgrade site collections individuallyFollowing your database upgrade, all existing site collections remain in SharePoint 2010 user interface (UI) mode. You must then upgrade each site collection to take advantage of the new SharePoint 2013 functionality. You can do this in bulk for Production site collections using the Service Administration portal. Follow the steps listed in Upgrading Site Collections found in Using the SharePoint Online Service Administration Portal (2013). There is also a video that demonstrates the preview and upgrade process just before the Upgrading Site Collections section.

Note: After the process is complete, check the logs for information and any errors that may have occurred during the upgrade. To view the upgrade logs, you must have Site Collection admin permissions to the upgraded site collection.






https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351127(v=exchg.150).aspx



Important: We recommend that you begin by submitting small batches of sites for upgrade and then make them progressively larger as you become familiar with the process.

What to expect after site collections are upgraded

When you upgrade a site collection, it uses the new SharePoint 2013 UI. This allows files in the site collection take advantage of SharePoint 2013 functionality.

Confirm your site collections are queued for upgradeWhen you submit site collections for upgrade using the Service Administration portal, a banner appears on the Site Collection Report page while the upgrade processes. When the banner disappears, the upgrade is complete.

To confirm your site collections are queued for upgrade:

1. Navigate to the Service Administration portal document library by manually adding Usage%20Reporting to the portal URL in the address bar. It should read like this: https: //team.mmsxl.com/o365admin/Usage%20Reporting

2. Once you/re in the document library, look for a file named Site Upgrades Errors- Change###.log. The ### symbols are the Action ID associated with the upgraded site collections in the Office 365 admin site. This log will only appear if a site collection couldn’t be queued for upgrade. If all site collections were successfully queued for upgrade, there’s no log file.

Note: For more information, see the “Change Details” section of the Service Administration Portal (2013) Working with Automated Changes topic.




You can use the Site Collection Report in the Service Administration portal to determine how the site collection upgrade process is working. This reportupdates daily, andindividual site collection upgrade statuses are provided in the Upgrade Status column of the report.

Note: For more information on upgrading site collections using the Service Administration portal, see Upgrading Site Collections. There is also a video that demonstrates the preview and upgrade process just before the Upgrading Site Collections section.




Site collection roll back options

To roll back a site collection, you must submit a Service Request (SR) to your service delivery manager (SDM). For site collections that are not My Sites, when the site is rolled back, it might require a farm reset that increases the risk of data loss. We strongly suggest you thoroughly test your site collections prior to upgrade.

Note: The Service Administration portal can’t be used to roll back site collections.

Set the compatibility mode to 2013Setting the compatibility mode to 2013 compatibility mode (also called site creation mode) determines whether new site collections use SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013 UI. After you choose SharePoint 2013 mode, all new site collections are created in 2013 mode and are exclusive to the SharePoint 2013 UI.

After you upgrade your database, all new sites created in Production continue to use the SharePoint 2010 UI until you submit a request to set the compatibility mode to 2013. In the PPE, after database upgrade new sites can be created using either SharePoint 2010 or SharePoint 2013 UI

Note: Don’t enable the 2013 compatibility mode for either the PPE or Production environments until you complete all phase two testing. For more information, see Phase one: Test. If you have custom site provisioning solutions, first verify that the provisioning process works as expected as shown in the following illustration.

To set the compatibility mode to 2013

1. Complete SPOD 13-207 (Upgrade My Site Host/ Set Compatibility Mode to 2013 ) with your SDM and then submit it to SharePoint Online.

2. SharePoint Online then sets the compatibility mode to 2013 in the PPE and Production environments at the same time.

Note: This change occurs within in 7 (seven) business days from the time the request is received and acknowledged.




What to expect after compatibility mode is set to 2013

After compatibility mode has been set to 2013, the user experience is as follows:

For existing sites in the PPE:

Existing sites remain in 2010 mode. The pink upgrade ribbon remains visible. You can continue to manually upgrade site collections.

For existing sites in Production:

Existing sites remain in 2010 mode. The pink upgrade ribbon isn’t visible. You must use the Service Administration portal to upgrade your site collections in

Production. Follow the steps listed in Upgrading Site Collections found in Using the SharePoint Online Service Administration Portal (2013). There is also a video that demonstrates the preview and upgrade process just before the Upgrading Site Collections section.

For new sites in PPE or Production:

New sites are created in 2013 mode. Users can no longer create new sites in 2010 mode.

2013 compatiblity mode roll back options

If you retract the 2013 compatibility mode, it restores your ability to create new sites in 2010 mode. Keep in mind that any sites that were created while compatibility mode was set to 2013 will remain in 2013 mode.






Appendix A – Site collection upgrade support modelThe support model includes:

Address issues and errors Submit a Service Request SharePoint 2013 product bugs and Cumulative Updates (CU)

Address issues and errors

If issues or errors are encountered while upgrading your site collections:

1. In the Service Administration portal, select Reporting > Site Collection Reports to check your upgrade logs. For more information, see Reporting.

Note: To view the upgrade logs, you must have Site Collection admin permissions to the upgraded site collection. Upgrade log links might not be available until a day after the upgrade has occurred.

2. Review the information in Troubleshoot site collection upgrade issues in SharePoint 2013.

3. If you can’t resolve your issue after reviewing the logs and troubleshooting guidance, open a Service Request (SR) and identify that the issue is related to the SharePoint 2013 upgrade process

Submit a Service Request

There are three ways for you to submit your Service Request (SR):

Online submission using the Support Resource section of the Office 365 Customer Portal.

Email submission. Phone support.

Note: Microsoft doesn’t accept end user transfer calls or calls with the end user on the line.

After your SR is assigned to an Office 365 Support agent for troubleshooting and resolution, the agent provides their contact information and ensures the issue will be addressed appropriately. Escalations are not accepted if it’s determined that Office 365 Support is not the appropriate resolution path for the issue.

Phone escalations are encouraged if you feel the issue needs immediate attention. Severity A escalations require you to contact Office 365 Support by phone to receive immediate attention. Customer Service Desks can contact the Office 365 Support team at any of the phone numbers found in the following table.

Country Toll Free Local (PSTN) Email

Dedicated Plans

Denmark 80347602 38322753 [email protected]

Japan 0120 984630 0364042874

Switzerland 0800 001 449 0227614087

mailto:[email protected]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219648.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219648.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn307721.aspx#bkmk_reporting

UK 0800 032 3138 0203 450 5647

US 1-877-966-7787 425-706-7732

1-877-9MOSSUP

ITAR Support Plans

US 1-866-344-0350 408-352-9290 [email protected]

SharePoint 2013 product bugs and Cumulative Updates

There are two ways to receive notification regarding bugs in a Cumulative Update (CU):

A product bug that deals with a significant impact to your service.

SharePoint Online provides a customer communication to your SDM as soon as a bug is identified that has customer-wide impact.

Note: At the time of the communication, if there’s a bug fix date available it will be noted in the communication. If there’s no bug fix date in the initial communication, the Service Management team tracks the bug until the bug fix dates are available and then sends you a communication.

Product bugs submitted using an SR with immediate fixes.

If a bug is discovered during the SR process and you are awaiting a fix, the SR is closed and a bug number is provided to your SDM to follow the bug. After a workaround is determined or there’s an available fix, it’s shared with you.

Note: If the CU update is large, a single product bug is used rather than multiple bugs.

21

Appendix B – Further resourcesThe following list provides more resources for site collectcion upgrade:

SharePoint Online Dedicated Upgrade Resources SharePoint Online Upgrade Guidance for Developers SharePoint Resource Guide Training courses for SharePoint Online Upgrade site collections to SharePoint 2013 Using the SharePoint Online Service Administration Portal (2013)

22


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219474.aspx

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-help/training-courses-for-sharepoint-2013-HA104030990.aspx

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=396613

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=397487

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn306456(technet.10)#bkmk_sharepointupgrade

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