Migrating to Exchange

Editing Migration Files

You can edit migration files to change or add data. You edit the primary files after they are extracted and before they are imported with Migration Wizard.

Caution Editing the secondary files is not recommended. Changes to secondary files require recalculating all offsets and then updating the primary file.

You may want to edit the primary files for the following reasons:

To change the common names of mailboxes. You can only do this before the mailbox is created.
To make the aliases different from the common names.
To change the display name format.
To parse the display name to generate the given name and surname fields, depending on the configuration of your source extractor.
To add additional fields and data (telephone numbers, department names, and other items) to Active Directory.
To delete all messages sent before a certain date, if your source extractor doesn't support the limiting of messages.

Important Editing migration files can introduce invalid or incorrect data. Make a backup of all migration files before editing them.

If you are creating your own source extractor, you can avoid editing the primary file by configuring the source extractor. For example, you can configure the source extractor to create given names and surnames, or to accept a text file of the old mailbox names and their new Exchange common names.

Note Some primary file fields may exceed 255 characters, but some spreadsheet programs cannot hold more than 255 characters in a cell. The extra characters can be truncated without notice, causing data loss.