Some notes on a SP 2003 to SP 2007 Upgrade and My Checklist

I’ve just finished up an interesting migration from SharePoint 2003 with CorasWorks to SharePoint 2007 with CorasWorks and thought I’d share some information from the migration.  One tool I came up with was a high level checklist to use to verify the results of the migration. I found that since the client was using all CorasWorks templates (with tabs) in SharePoint 2003 there were some issues when the sites were migrated (using the in-place method on a temporary server).  Rather than using the CorasWorks Design Migrator tool (which seemed to have some unexpected results) or resetting the sites to the site definitions, the client actually decided to keep the sites with the SharePoint 2003 look and feel (which actually made the transition easier for the end users) and still gets the new and improved tools and capabilities of SharePoint 2007.

I still have to resolve some issues with alerts not working properly and will provide notes on that when complete. For now, and for your reading pleasure, here’s the checklist I used after the migration. I tried to steer clear of SQL queries, as that’s not my forte, and just use the basic stsadm tools and manual checks:

• Validated that the number of sites on the new server matched the number of sites on the old server. This ensures that no site is left behind due to errors.
• Reviewed the spbackup.log, and sprestore logs to ensure that the restore process was successful without errors.
• Went through the task list on the Home page of the Central Administration Console to complete all recommended tasks for a new SP 2007 configuration.
• Checked the Services on Server page to make sure the farm is properly configured.
• Manually validated every sub site and sub-sub site while updating the CorasWorks Workplace View Advanced web part on each sub site and sub-sub site to make sure that they looked identical to the source site.
• Tested every tab on each sub site and sub-sub site as well for consistency and Workplace View Advanced web part
• Spot checked privileges on a handful of sites in the restored environment to ensure that they were the same as on the source site.
• Tested searching of content within several document libraries and lists, including textual content contained in pdf documents after I uploaded the Adobe pdf iFilter.
• Reviewed Event logs (application and System) on new front end and back end SP 2007 servers and found no recurring errors of concern.
• Tested backup batch file (similar to one used on SP 2003 server) after updating. Verified that data and IIS metabase is being backed up to the E drive of the back end server.
• Validated that site level usage reports are being processed.
• Validated that search query reports are being processed.
• Checked site features to ensure that Office SharePoint Server Standard Site features were active.
• Used SPTest1 test account to test access to new environment.
• Tested uploading documents to document library, tested explorer view, tested datasheet view.
• Validated that document versions had come over.
• After DNS change, tested access to old and new servers via IP address, server name and FQDN
• Validated that emails are being sent when requested when a new user is added to a site
• Tested creation of a site at the top level, from the SitesDirectory and from ../sites/home. All completed successfully.

 Feel free to post comments/suggestions on what I might have missed on this list!