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Avoid These 5 Common Google Workspace Migration Mistakes: Lessons from Successful Projects


Moving to Google Workspace is often pitched as a simple upgrade—a way to modernize email and file storage. But if you treat it as just a technical “lift and shift,” you are likely setting yourself up for a struggle. The reality is that migration represents a fundamental pivot in how your organization operates, collaborates, and secures its data.


At Kartaca, we’ve seen the difference between migrations that stall and those that transform businesses. The successful ones don’t just move data; they move mindsets.


If you are a technical decision-maker planning this journey, here are the five most common pitfalls we see—and, more importantly, how to avoid them.


1. Underestimating Scope (The “Technical Debt” Trap)

The most immediate risk is assuming that moving data is a linear process governed only by internet speed. It isn’t. It’s governed by complexity.


Legacy file servers often harbor “technical debt”—folder structures nested 20 layers deep, broken permission inheritances, and millions of tiny, dormant files. Google Drive is optimized for flatter, search-driven hierarchies. If you try to force a legacy structure directly into the cloud, you’ll hit API limits and permission errors that can grind your migration to a halt.


This is where many teams misjudge effort. What looks like a storage problem is usually an information architecture problem.



The Fix: Clean, Map, and Archive

Don’t move everything. Conduct a pre-migration audit to identify “hot data” (files used in the last 18 months) and archive the rest. For everything else, leverage Google Vault. Instead of a hard delete or an offline archive, moving stale data into Vault keeps it searchable for legal discovery (litigation holds) without cluttering the active production environment.


Redesign shared drives around teams and processes, not historical folder trees. A smaller, intentional structure migrates faster and gets adopted sooner.

2. Neglecting the Human Element (The “Lift and Shift” Fallacy)

Technology is easy; people are hard. A common failure mode is deploying the tools without changing the culture. If your users treat Google Drive like a local file server—or worse, if they keep downloading Docs as Word files to email them—you aren’t getting any ROI. You’re just paying for a new way to work significantly slower.


User behavior, not platform choice, determines success. The shift is as much mental as it is technical.


Legacy habits versus Workspace thinking often look like this:

  • Version control moves from filename_v2_final.docx to the version history with a single source of truth.
  • Collaboration shifts from emailing attachments to real-time co-editing and @mentions.
  • Storage evolves from personal folders to team-owned shared drives.
  • Access changes from VPN dependency to identity-based access anywhere.


The Fix: Excite, Enable, Expand

You need a Change Management strategy that runs parallel to your technical plan.

  • Recruit “Google Guides”: Identify power users in every department (Finance, HR, Sales) to act as peer support.
  • Train for Roles, Not Features: Don’t just show how to use Sheets; show Finance how to use Connected Sheets to analyze BigQuery data without SQL.
  • Follow the Framework: Use the proven “Excite, Enable, Expand, Embed” methodology to guide users through the “Valley of Despair” that accompanies any new tool.
  • Measure Adoption Early: Track signals like attachment reduction, shared drive usage, and real-time collaboration. If you don’t define success, you can’t improve it.

3. Leaving the “Castle Gates” Open (Security Misconfiguration)

In your old on-prem world, security was a firewall—a castle and moat. In Google Workspace, identity is the new perimeter. A major pitfall is ignoring the link between your existing directory and the cloud. If a user is terminated in Active Directory but their Google account remains active, you have a critical security gap.



The Fix: Zero Trust and Integrated Identity

Implement Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) or the newer “Directory Sync” (cloud-native) to ensure your local Active Directory or Microsoft Entra ID remains the single source of truth.

  • Enforce 2-Step Verification (2SV): This is non-negotiable. Use hardware Security Keys to neutralize phishing risks for admins.*
  • Context-Aware Access: Configure policies to block access to sensitive Drive data when a user logs in from an unmanaged personal device or a suspicious IP address.*
  • Block Shadow IT: Set your API controls to “Restricted” by default so users can’t grant random third-party apps access to corporate data.
  • Plan Retention and Recovery Early: Google Workspace isn’t a backup by default. Define Vault retention rules and decide whether additional backup is required for compliance or ransomware scenarios.

4. Fumbling the Handoff (The Hybrid Hurdle)

“Big Bang” migrations are high-risk. Successful projects almost always use a phased approach: starting with a technical pilot (IT), moving to a business pilot (early adopters), and then the global rollout.


Unless you are a small startup, you probably won’t migrate everyone on a single Friday night. You will have a period during which Google Workspace and your legacy system (such as Exchange) must coexist. If you don’t engineer this phase correctly, calendars won’t sync, free/busy data will be invisible, and meetings will be double-booked.



The Fix: Robust Interoperability and Phasing

Run a “Phase 0” pilot with roughly 5% of users to catch environment-specific API throttling or permission issues before they impact the whole company.

  • Calendar Interop: Configure this early to ensure users on both systems can see each other’s availability in real-time.*
  • Split Delivery: Set up your email routing so emails flow seamlessly between the two environments without getting stuck in loops.
  • Resource Sync: Ensure meeting rooms booked in one system show as “busy” in the other immediately.

A smooth hybrid phase isn’t optional. It’s what keeps the business running while IT changes the engine mid-flight.

5. Stagnating at “Go-Live”

The most tragic mistake is thinking the project ends when the data is moved. If you stop there, you’re missing the point. The real value of Google Workspace isn’t in hosting email; it’s in the innovation layer—AI, automation, and real-time analytics.



The Fix: Day 2 Innovation

Turn your migration team into an Innovation Center of Excellence.

  • Democratize Data: Build a real-time data warehouse on Google Cloud. Don’t just store data, empower business teams to analyze live customer behavior using the tools they already know.
  • Automate with AppSheet: Encourage non-technical staff to build no-code apps that digitize paper forms and manual checklists.
  • Leverage AI Safely: Use Gemini for Workspace to automate mundane tasks. Crucially, unlike consumer AI, Gemini for Business includes enterprise-grade data protections—ensuring your sensitive corporate data is never used to train global models.

Establish lightweight governance so the environment scales cleanly. Decide who owns shared drives, how external sharing is approved, and how new teams are created. Guardrails matter once momentum builds.

⭐⭐⭐



The “Day 2” Success Checklist: Your First 90 Days


Month 1: Stabilization & Security Hardening

Focus: Ensuring the environment is stable and the “Castle Gates” are locked.

  • Conduct a Post-Migration Security Audit: Review the Admin Console Reports to identify any users who haven’t enabled 2SV or are using outdated browsers.
  • Finalize Identity Sync: Ensure Google Cloud Directory Sync (GCDS) is running without errors and that user provisioning/deprovisioning is fully automated.
  • Monitor Hybrid Traffic: Check for “Split Delivery” errors. Ensure no emails are bouncing between your legacy system and Google.
  • Shared Drive Governance: Review the first wave of Shared Drives. Are they named correctly? Are the “Manager” roles assigned to the right people (and not just IT)?
  • Set Vault Retention: Formally enable Google Vault retention rules for Mail and Drive to meet your legal and compliance requirements.

Month 2: Decommissioning & Optimization

Focus: Turning off the old “money pits” and refining the user experience.

  • Decommission Legacy Servers: Once “Phase 0” and the global rollout are stable, begin the final shutdown of on-prem file servers or Exchange hardware.
  • Audit License Spend: Identify “Inactive Users” (accounts that haven’t logged in for 30 days) and reallocate or remove those licenses to optimize costs.
  • The “Google Guides” Debrief: Meet with your power users. Identify the top 3 friction points users are facing and schedule targeted 15-minute “Micro-Training” sessions.
  • Drive Cleanup: Identify users who are still storing large volumes of data in “My Drive” instead of “Shared Drives” and help them migrate to a team-centric model.
  • Mobile Management: Ensure Basic or Advanced Mobile Management is enforced so corporate data can be wiped if a device is lost.

Month 3: Innovation & Transformation

Focus: Moving beyond “Email & Docs” to high-value automation.

  • Launch an “AppSheet” Pilot: Identify one manual, paper-based process (e.g., equipment requests or expense approvals) and build a simple AppSheet no-code app.
  • Gemini Enablement: Run a workshop on Gemini for Workspace. Show teams how to use AI to draft RFPs in Docs or summarize missed “Meet” recordings.
  • BigQuery Integration: Connect a high-traffic Sheet to BigQuery using Connected Sheets to show the leadership team real-time data visualization without manual exports.
  • Establish a Center of Excellence (CoE): Transition your migration team into a permanent (but lightweight) group that reviews new Google feature releases every month.
  • Success Celebration: Publish an internal “Modernization Report” that shows metrics such as % reduction in email attachments and growth in internal collaboration.

Why Partner Expertise Matters

Navigating API throttling limits, configuring SSO/GCDS, and managing organizational change are not everyday tasks for most IT teams. That’s where a partner like Kartaca comes in.


We’ve helped many organizations not just migrate, but modernize. We act as your strategic navigator, helping you avoid the technical debt trap and ensuring your security posture is robust from day one.


Migration is just the beginning. Whether you need to navigate complex API limits or drive user adoption with a “Google Guides” program, you don’t have to do it alone. Contact us today to join successful organizations that trusted Kartaca to modernize their workplace.


Author: Gizem Terzi Türkoğlu

Date Published: Jan 5, 2026