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Switching Cloud Providers...

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Level 3

We are switching from Box to SharePoint within the next few weeks and have over 50,000 documents linked from Box. Most are proofs with comments and decisions that we cannot lose for compliance and legal reasons.

 

I've been told by support that once Box is sunset, we are going to lose our linked files in Workfront and they recommend relinking them all to SharePoint which does not seem feasible for 50k documents. Has anyone else switched Cloud Providers or had to deal with something similar? Looking for any help or recommendations! 

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Level 8

Oof, that's brutal. I think you just discovered one reason to be cautious of integrations with third-party cloud services. The fact that you're looking at mere weeks to enact your plan is...unfortunate.

If this were me and there were no good alternatives, I would identify a window of time to focus on preserving. Obviously the things that are currently in flight matter most.

My big question is: Do the decisions still exist if the document link disappears? In some respects, that's the most important because we use proof often as a means to document decisions. The details of those decisions become less and less important as time passes (arguably). I don't know the answer to my own question, so it's worth testing it or reaching out to Workfront support for guidance. If the decisions remain, then a bulk migration of the files might be what you opt to do for most items.

Workfront support also might be able to give you insights into reporting opportunities on proof decisions and comments. If you can build reports to document decision history and perhaps even comments, you can at least keep static copies in an archive. It sounds like a ton of work—not necessarily in building the reports, rather in exporting the results—but if that's what you need, it could be worth the effort.

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5 Replies

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Correct answer by
Level 8

Oof, that's brutal. I think you just discovered one reason to be cautious of integrations with third-party cloud services. The fact that you're looking at mere weeks to enact your plan is...unfortunate.

If this were me and there were no good alternatives, I would identify a window of time to focus on preserving. Obviously the things that are currently in flight matter most.

My big question is: Do the decisions still exist if the document link disappears? In some respects, that's the most important because we use proof often as a means to document decisions. The details of those decisions become less and less important as time passes (arguably). I don't know the answer to my own question, so it's worth testing it or reaching out to Workfront support for guidance. If the decisions remain, then a bulk migration of the files might be what you opt to do for most items.

Workfront support also might be able to give you insights into reporting opportunities on proof decisions and comments. If you can build reports to document decision history and perhaps even comments, you can at least keep static copies in an archive. It sounds like a ton of work—not necessarily in building the reports, rather in exporting the results—but if that's what you need, it could be worth the effort.

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Level 3

I just wanted to share our solution to this incase anyone comes across this issue in the future. We were able to successfully utilize Fusion to create new document versions of ALL individual files that were linked from Box (~50k). This saved us a TON of time and we are now still able to reference back to old versions/decisions/comments as we normally would have. 

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Community Advisor


Congratulations @Kasey-Gagne,

 

Converting linked Box document links into new Workfront based versions (with Proof version history intact) using Fusion sounds like an elegant solution.

 

When it is convenient, I’d be interested to hear what happened to the Workfront links to Box, the Box documents themselves, and (for context) why you decided to make this switch in the first place.

 

Regards,

Doug

Thanks Doug!

 

We migrated all of the files within Box to SharePoint. All of the actual Box links within Workfront are now broken so we cannot access or download the previous versions of the file -- we can only view via the proofing tool.

 

However, we have a pretty organized file cataloging system in which we include the WF reference number on the asset itself and well as within our file names so we can manually use that number to search within Sharepoint now to find the working files if need be. 

 

The decision to switch from Box to Sharepoint was companywide, so we did not have a choice in the matter. I will say, unfortunately, as a marketing department who is primarily working with large design and video files, we have had a pretty poor experience with Sharepoint thus far in all aspects. We have had nothing but issues with the Workfront & Sharepoint integration that we did not have with Box. WF Support has been a great help in trying to troubleshoot with us but unfortunately it's beginning to look like we may need to stop linking files and begin utilizing Workfront based versions. =( 

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Community Advisor


Thanks @Kasey-Gagne,

 

Out of the frying pan…

 

Good luck getting to your final destination, wherever that may be.

 

Regards,

Doug