Customer story
A Silicon Valley pharmaceutical company with 4,500 employees across multiple time zones was running its email on APLUS, a POP3/IMAP web-based service with no native calendaring. We planned and executed a full mailbox migration to Office 365 — consolidating and deduplicating every user’s PST files along the way — with structured training and support for the client’s IT team.
Engagement facts
Client
US pharmaceutical company, 4,500+ employees
Industry
Pharmaceutical / Life Sciences
Region
Silicon Valley, California, USA (multiple time zones)
Service
Email migration & PST consolidation
Stack
Office 365
PowerShell
TransVault Insight
mailboxes migrated from APLUS to Office 365
PST
files consolidated and deduplicated for every user
scheduled uptime SLA on the new platform scheduled uptime SLA on the new platform
ISO 27001
certified security & compliance standard
The client
A Silicon Valley pharmaceutical company outgrowing its email platform
The client is a pharmaceutical company based in Silicon Valley, USA, with approximately 4,500 employees working across multiple time zones. The organization was using APLUS, a POP3 and IMAP web-based email service, and wanted to move to Microsoft Office 365.
The need
A mailbox migration with no native calendar and years of scattered PST files
As part of a broader move to modern technology, the company needed to migrate its entire email infrastructure to Office 365. Key requirements included migrating every mailbox from APLUS, auditing and merging users’ scattered PST files with their correct owners, and retaining personal calendar events even though APLUS did not support calendaring or free/busy sharing. The rollout also had to include user education and post-migration training for the local IT team.
- Migrate every mailbox from APLUS to Office 365
- Audit and merge multiple PST files per user with their correct owner
- Retain personal calendar events despite APLUS having no native calendar support
- Document and educate users throughout the migration
- Train and support local IT staff after go-live
The challenge
Consolidating scattered PST files without losing a single mailbox
Years of POP3/IMAP use had left employees with multiple, duplicated PST files scattered across devices, with no calendar data to migrate directly from the source system. Star Knowledge needed to locate, deduplicate, and merge every PST with its correct mailbox owner, plan a batched cutover for 4,500 users across multiple time zones, and keep local IT and end users informed throughout — all without a native calendaring system to lean on.
The solution
A scripted, batch-based migration built around PST consolidation
Star Knowledge’s Office 365 consultants combined custom PowerShell scripts with the TransVault Insight tool to plan and execute the migration in structured batches, with dedicated support at every stage of the cutover.
PST consolidation
Audited and merged users’ multiple PST files with their respective owners.
Cutover planning
Centralized all PST files ahead of a planned, batched cutover.
Deduplication
Addressed duplicate data across PSTs using TransVault Insight.
Mailbox migration & sync
Migrated mailboxes in planned batches and synchronized PSTs post-cutover.
User communication
Built mail-merge notification macros to keep every batch of users informed.
Support, training & handover
Stood up a support desk, trained users and IT staff, and handed over PowerShell scripts for ongoing bulk changes.
Benefits
What changed for the client
Stronger security
Office 365 traffic protected end-to-end with 128-bit SSL/TLS encryption.
Reliable uptime
Backed by a 99.9% scheduled uptime service level agreement.
Certified compliance
ISO 27001 certified, with completed SAS70 Type I and II audits.
Modern feature set
Full access to the latest Microsoft server product features and functionality.
Technology
What we used
See how our Office 365 migration team scopes a project.
Your migration
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