Quest Leisure was working with a disjointed environment that was no longer fit for purpose. It had an existing on-premises solution comprising of Kerio Connect email running on Linux Debian/Ubuntu. The Kerio Connect software was expiring, which was one of the main driving forces behind the project.

Another factor was that the business was using various versions of Microsoft Office and Outlook, meaning users didn’t have access to a standardised environment or the latest software. There were also limitations and inefficiencies related to the on-premises infrastructure.

Quest also had the email archiving solution MailStore Server which removed mail from Kerio Connect after 2 years and moved it into the archive. If required a user would log into the archive server to access their archived mail or connect via Outlook. The overall infrastructure was made up of different solutions and needed to be unified to improve performance and efficiency.

The 848 Group recommended a Microsoft 365 migration, transitioning from the existing environment to a secure and productive Microsoft workspace. This included migrating apps such as Outlook away from the previous mail solution. With a dedicated security practice, the 848 team secured the environment and ensured Quest Leisure would have the most up to date security. This included multi-factor authentication (MFA) and spam filtering.

Adam Hughes, Director at Quest Leisure explained: “The preparation for the Microsoft 365 migration was done quickly and efficiently via Teams. 848 quickly understood our infrastructure and took on board all the information we passed them. They asked for extra information that we had initially forgotten to prepare. This was excellent as it proved their knowledge of the requirements for Microsoft 365, plus it meant nothing was missed during the implementation.”

Once the Microsoft 365 migration was complete, 848 ensured the existing email archiving server would continue running to allow time to export and migrate the email to the Microsoft workspace. All users were given Microsoft 365 licenses, to standardise experiences and ensure no users had outdated versions of Office apps or Outlook.

Adam said: “The implementation went very smoothly. 848 prepared the majority of the environment before we were engaged, which meant very little of our time was used in the initial set up. It also meant that the interruption to office staff was kept to a bare minimum. The implementation meant we were able to run both systems simultaneously using the same client on the user desks so they could continue with their day-to-day activities.”

“When emails started coming into the new environment, users simply had to move all old messages from one folder to another in Outlook. This helped ensure that the office had no issues at all during the implementation.”

Quest Leisure has benefited from a secure, unified and efficient Microsoft 365 platform for email, collaboration and productivity. The new environment has provided users with the latest technology backed by enterprise-class security and the Microsoft cloud. This allowed for the redundant servers to be switched off and removed.

The Microsoft 365 migration project was delivered within the expected timescales meaning the migration was completed before the existing server and related technologies became end of life. This meant Quest had a seamless transition to the new environment and the day-to-day running of the business wasn’t interrupted.

The client has enjoyed rapid support from 848 too, with Adam summarising, “The support from 848 has been quick and correct on the very few support cases we have had to raise. Having 848 support as the frontline gives us a faster response time than dealing with Microsoft direct. It also gives us the advantage of an account manager who can escalate calls if required and help with additional tasks – like purchasing extra licenses, changing existing ones – which speeds up the process, management and use of the Microsoft 365 service.”