Movebot is a simple, fast and cost-effective way to migrate your users and data into Dropbox Business from other platforms such as Egnyte, Box, Google Drive or on-premise file servers. Movebot does not perform any actions beyond copying files and folders, as well as setting permissions on the destination. Movebot never performs delete operations.
Prior to migrating into Dropbox Business and during your planning phase, Movebot's free preflight scan is recommended. The scan is designed to identify how many users own data, its structure, permissions etc. as well it identifies if there are any flagged issues that need to be investigated. The scan is effectively a dry-run migration that doesn't move a single file. See here on how to run a preflight scan.
Configuration the Dropbox Business Migration
Step 1: Create a new migration
- Navigate to your Movebot Dashboard and click Create New Migration at the top of your screen
- Select the type of migration you are looking to do. Chances are with Dropbox Business your migration is going to involve multiple users and drives, in this case select Organization/Project Migration
Step 2: Name your Project
- Provide your project a name, then click Save and Continue
Step 3: Select your Source Platform
- Select your source platform from the drop down
- Authenticate or connect to your platform (this differs based on your chosen platform, see here how to configure all platforms)
- Click Save and Continue
Step 4: Configure Dropbox Business as your Destination Platform
- Select Dropbox Business from the drop down
- Enter your Dropbox Business admin account
- Click Link Storage and login via the OAuth pop-up using the same admin account and allow access to Couchdrop (Movebot)
- We recommend enabling Exclude Shared Content (this prevents duplicate content being migrated if it is shared across multiple users)
- Click Save and Continue
Step 5: Enable Permissions
- Decide whether you would like to preserve permissions
- Please see our basic permission guide and our advanced permission guide
- Once configured select Save and Continue
Step 6: Content Options
- You can now choose to include/exclude files within the migration, or use REGEX to filter further. By default Movebot will attempt to migrate all files.
- You can also tweak additional settings as below:
| Filename Sanitization | Some providers such as OneDrive don't allow certain characters in file names, we will make amendments so that all your files make it across. |
| Doctype Conversion | Google file types such as .gdoc, .gsheet and .gslide aren't readable from other providers, we will automagically convert the files to .docx, .xlsx and .pptx during the migration. |
| Duplicate Sanitization | Google Drive allows multiple files and folders with the same name, with this enabled and if there are two or more files with the same name, we only move the most recently updated file. |
| File Versions | You can migrate multiple file versions as part of your migration. However it is strongly recommended that you talk to a Movebot expert prior to migrating these permissions. |
We recommend leaving the above as default to ensure you migration performs optimally.
- Click Save and Continue when you are ready
Step 7: Options
-
You can configure additional migration settings here to further optimize or tweak your migration
- Click Save and Exit
| Delta Enabled | Forces all migrations to operate like a delta migration which will only move files that have been modified since the last migration. |
| Worker Nodes | Improve performance by adding extra Movebots (computes) to process your data |
| Worker Threads | We highly recommend not touching this unless you know what you are doing. This is set to the best for your cloud provider by default. |
| Worker Region | Choose the region for your migration to run from to maintain data sovereignty governance and performance benefits for on-premises migrations. |
| Worker Affinity Tag | This feature is only used if the team at Movebot provide you a tag. |
Step 8: Adding mappings
You've now configured your base migration settings. You can now create an organizational scan or add user, folder or drive mappings using the + Add User/Drive button in the top right corner.
| Add User/Drive Mapping | A manual method of adding migration mappings. You can select multiple options on the source and a single option on the destination. You can also navigate into directories by clicking on the location name and return one level by selecting the back arrow. |
| Add Full Org Scan | Select this when looking to run a pre-migration discovery scan across your entire source platform. You can also run individual scans on each mapping using either CSV or the manual mapping options. |
| Import user and drive mapping from CSV file | You can bulk upload migration mappings using CSV files. See our CSV file guide for more. |
Managing your Migration
- You are now taken to your migration dashboard where you can:
| Start/Stop your migrations | You can either select all your migrations and run them or select specific ones and run them one by one. |
| Run a Discovery Scan | This will scan your source platform and see what issues we will attempt to resolve, how much data and other information displayed in our analytics. |
| Rerun failures | Sometimes not all files make it across on the first go due to numerous reasons. You can select migrations that have errors and choose to rerun only the files that have failed. |
| Run delta | This will only migrate any files that have been modified since the last migration run. |
| Migrate permissions | Best to run this closer to cutover as you may only migrate data up until this point. This will apply permissions and also run a delta migration. |
| Mark Ok | If your migration has failures, but you are happy with them, you can mark them as okay to remove the red alert from your dashboard. |
| Click on an individual mapping | If you click on an individual mapping you will get a breakdown of the files found, some analytics on the data, logs and also if the migration is running, real-time information to show performance and current status. |
Click below to go back to Movebot and Get Started
Should you have any issues or questions, please do not hesitate to email support@movebot.io
Movebot Dropbox Business Migration FAQ
How is Dropbox Business different compared to other providers?
Dropbox Business is similar to Google Workspace (Drive Enterprise) in the sense there are three categories, users, drives and shared files. Users hold and own the data within themselves, team drives are centralized data repositories that users access based on permissions and shared files are files that have been shared with a particular user. Movebot enables you to migrate users, data into team drives and when using permissions, migrate shared files.
Dropbox Business unsupported characters and files
Movebot automatically sanitises file and folder names to ensure they comply with Dropbox's standards. Dropbox states what they support in their knowledge base article here. Movebot identifies these as part of its scan and on completion these can be found under the flagged issues tab.
Does Movebot sync files or support delta migrations?
Movebot offers a source-to-destination delta - when you run a transfer, we compare the destination files to the source and only transfer new or modified files. After the migration has started we strongly recommend not altering your data structure (moving folders or files) or renaming files or folders until after the migration. Doing either of these could cause duplicate files and folders depending the hierarchy and where the item was edited.
We compare the timestamps of the files in both the source and destination and transfer the newest versions only. This can be turned on under your migration's global settings.
Does Movebot delete files?
We do not delete your data from any source. Think of our operations as a "copy and paste".
Does Movebot preserve file versions?
Yes, this is an option within Movebot to migrate all or some of the file versions related to a specific file. By default we only move the most modified file.
Does Movebot notify users?
No, Movebot does not notify users as part of a standard migration. If you migrate permissions and sharing then users may receive file invitations once these have been applied. This is an option under the permissions configuration.