Migration from DocStar to SharePoint for Real Estate Firm

17 JAN 2019

The Client

The customer is a large Private Real Estate Company in the USA.

The Need

The client is a recognized name in the Real Estate industry with a need to scan, upload and tag several hundreds of documents each day to support its listing business. The client was using DocStar to manage the documents, however, it was complex and not scaling fast with their business going global and cloud computing becoming the norm.

The client was looking to use a cloud-based document management solution to scale its business and at the same time have ease of navigation and management.

The Challenge

The client needed a solution that is always available and secure with the ability to manage permissions and access control to the document library by its authorized users and agents. More importantly, the client wanted to have a simple user experience to upload, search, navigate and manage documents with the minimal learning curve. The client had recently performed an Office 365 migration and desired SharePoint based solution for seamless access to the document library for all its users and agents.

The client needed to configure and set up several document libraries with different role type and associated security for the Client’s authorized users. The client had more than 500,000 thousand files across each DocStar folder with the custom titles and metadata that needed to be migrated and custom views to be created.

The solution required migration from DocStar’s file server running on Windows 2003 Server that opened up challenges for Migration tool configuration and required complex file server mapping for the migration. Additionally, SharePoint online throws throttling issues and view threshold issues when the library list limit exceeds 5000 files and hence optimizing each document library becomes the most critical challenge as custom views were a critical component of the document library.

The Solution

Star Knowledge with a seasonal team of certified consultants who have delivered unparalleled SharePoint consulting services and SharePoint migration services, proposed to Migrate from DocStar to SharePoint online given the fact that the client was already on Office 365 and wanted a cost-effective solution to access data anytime over the internet from any device.

The solution involved setting up custom document libraries with custom meta-tagging supported and search configured for faster retrieval instead of the traditional folder structure. The documents within DocStar were classified as per their existing folder structure and metadata that required to be migrated to SharePoint. The SharePoint migration setup involved setting up ShareGate to migrate the documents to SharePoint online respective document library.

The first step was to conduct a pilot migration followed by a full-fledged migration. Once the migration of data was successfully completed, the documents needed to be grouped by their titles. Given the fact that the number of documents within the list exceeded 5000 files threshold, the views were designed keeping in mind the workaround. Also, the metadata columns within the document libraries were first indexed for faster retrieval and then the documents were grouped by their Titles. Additionally, the document libraries were allowed access by defined security groups.

Finally, once the configuration was completed, the libraries were synced with the OneDrive Sync Agent on the client’s Shared Network Drive that allowed the client to scan documents on their network drive and synced to SharePoint for classification.

Benefits

• Faster Navigation, Retrieval, and Classification of documents
• Secure Access to documents only to designated security groups
• Custom view and automated File sync based on user permissions
• Customized Views for better organization and usability
• Easier to manage security settings for the entire site collection or document library level.

Technology

• SharePoint Online
• Windows Server
• ShareGate
• JavaScript
• OneDrive Sync Client

Have a similar case? Star Knowledge is a reliable SharePoint consultant with proven track record of delivering SharePoint consulting servces, SharePoint Online services, and SharePoint migration services. Our time-tested consultants have built hundreds of custom SharePoint solutions for our clients spread across the Healthcare, Real Estate, Construction, Manufacturing, Retail industries etc. Get in touch with us to discuss your project requirements.