Migrating Files to SharePoint with Drag and Drop

There are a range of specialist migration toolkits available to handle the bulk migration to SharePoint from existing File Shares and Microsoft Outlook / Exchange. However many organizations are looking for a way to enable individual users to migrate their own files and key email messages into their new SharePoint document management environment. Using this 'grass roots' approach to migration can be quite appropriate - it not only removes a major resource-intensive task from the IT Department, but also allows individual users to be selective about which files / email messages are worth migrating and provides an opportunity for those users to capture any additional meta-data that is required by the new SharePoint-based document store.

The WISDOM Document Management Framework add-on for Microsoft SharePoint 2007 from Microsoft Gold Partner MacroView is a great tool for streamlining the upload of files and email messages to SharePoint. WISDOM DMF is a neat tool for ongoing management of files stored in SharePoint - it also provides good support for uploading multiple files and email messages, which are very handy when you are initially migrating existing content into SharePoint.

WISDOM DMF provides each user with an intuitive tree-view display of all parts of the SharePoint docuemnt store that they are permitted to access. This makes it easy for someone who previously was using Windows Explorer to visualise and work with files stored in File Shares. It is also a familiar paradigm for a user of Microsoft Outlook, where email messages are organised into nested folders.

You can upload multiple files simultaneously into a document library or folder in SharePoint simply by dragging and dropping them from a file share folder into the WISDOM tree-view display. With WISDOM you can also drag and drop to save multiple email messages into SharePoint - WISDOM will uniquely name the resulting message files and ensure that attachments are preserved.

WISDOM DMF captures meta-data as its saves or uploads to SharePoint. Indeed WISDOM supports multiple Content Types and all column types that are available in standard Microsoft SharePoint, including Business Data columns. Even better, when you are uploading multiple files or messages, WISDOM can prompt you once for meta-data and then apply that common meta-data to all the files (or messages) being uploaded.

Tests have shown that WISDOM DMF works successfully when uploading over 5,000 files from a file share folder - it will comfortably handle the migration needs of individual users.