Quest On Demand Migration - Term Store Migration Behaviour and Scenarios (4381888)

Customers migrating SharePoint content with ODM may experience the following:

• Term Groups (including default groups such as People or System) exist in the target tenant but are missing Term Sets from the source tenant.
• Term Sets with the same name exist in both tenants, but the target Term Set is missing some terms.
• It is unclear whether ODM treats same-named Term Groups, Term Sets, or Terms as duplicates or the same objects.
• During list or library migration, managed metadata (taxonomy) columns are skipped, even though the related Term Sets appear to exist in the target tenant.

The following warning may be logged:

The following managed metadata columns for the 'Documents' list were not migrated because the term store referenced by these columns has not been migrated. Please confirm that the global term store and site term group have been migrated, then re-migrate the list.

• ODM matches Term Store objects by GUID first, and by display name if no GUID match is found.
• If Term Sets already exist in the target tenant and were manually or pre-created, their GUIDs differ from the source.
• Managed metadata columns are bound to Term Sets by GUID only during list and library provisioning.

As a result, taxonomy columns are skipped when ODM cannot find a Term Set with a matching GUID in the target tenant.

Term Store Migration Behaviour:

• If a Term Group exists in the target tenant and a Term Set is missing, ODM creates the missing Term Set.
• If a Term Set exists but is missing terms, ODM creates the missing terms without removing existing ones.
• If Term Groups, Term Sets, or Terms exist with the same name, ODM matches and updates them rather than creating duplicates.

Taxonomy Columns:

• Migrate the Global Term Store before migrating SharePoint sites, lists, or libraries.
• Avoid manually creating Term Sets in the target tenant prior to migration.
• After successful Term Store migration, re-run list or library migration to provision managed metadata columns.

NOTE:

1. Term Store migration in ODM is additive and non-destructive.
2. Existing objects are reused and updated when matched by ID or name.
3. Migration order is critical due to GUID-based binding of taxonomy columns.