Game Plan: Migrating from Dropbox for Business to Egnyte

This week my team and I are migrating from Dropbox for Business to Egnyte. Read the story of why we’re switching here. To ensure the transition goes smoothly for both my employees and our clients with whom we collaborate, I’ve made a quick game plan.
Migrate data
This should be pretty straight forward. My team has less than 50 gigabytes to migrate, so I plan to use the desktop applications for both software and a simple cut + paste. Of course, I’ll be doing this in the dead of night (6 pm should work) to avoid disrupting my users. A comment on my previous post asked about retaining ownership of documents, but in our use case, all shared documents are essentially “owned” by me as the administrator with little need to distinguish further.
Sort folders
In Dropbox, the permissions are only configurable on top-level folders. I plan to make good use of the granular permissions available to us in Egnyte. Our current folder structure is littered with top-level folders:

With Egnyte, I’ll be able to consolidate all client information into one top-level folder per client. I sketched out a plan:

Users & permissions
After rearranging our folders to take advantage of the more granular permissions, I’ll create all user accounts. With my user accounts I will then create user groups — one for internal, then one for each client. From there I will be able to quickly add/remove users by simply assigning the proper grouping.
With user groups created, I can carefully assign the permissions based on my folder structure notes. Each month we will roll that month’s folder from “Editor” to “View” permissions for all users to preserve the archive, as was discussed in my other article.
Create new file share links
The managers in each revenue center at our clients are responsible for using Excel templates to balance their sales each day. These macro-enabled templates are frequently blocked by email firewalls, not to mention lost in emails.
Instead, we will use Egnyte’s file uploading feature, where managers are given a unique link to upload their completed files. These will land in the “Manager File Request Inbox” folder noted in my sketch above. Revenue audit will use those files to create journal entries then move them into the monthly folders upon completion.
Reconfigure FloQast
Our trusty close management software, FloQast, is the center of our outsourcing operation. FloQast connects reconciliations prepared in Excel and compares them to the balances in Intacct, our ERP system.

I haven’t gone through this type of reconfiguration before with FloQast, but I’m confident in Chris Sluty and his team to get me through.
Communicate to users
Of course, the most important step will communicating the effects to users. My internal team is already prepped for this, and I’ll need to communicate with two types of users at my clients: collaborators and uploaders (managers).
The collaborators will need more in depth information, including user credentials, whereas my uploaders need a new link and a few simple instructions. Luckily, my uploaders are used to using Dropbox’s File Request links so the transition should be smooth.
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