Alfresco to SharePoint Online Migration

Unlock Microsoft 365's full potential, gaining enterprise collaboration, AI-powered content services, and seamless integration across your digital workplace, all while preserving your content investment and business continuity.

Alfresco Migration Source and Target Overview

Source

  • Alfresco Community Edition
  • Alfresco Content Services (Enterprise)
  • Alfresco Cloud
  • Legacy Alfresco versions (4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x)

Target

  • SharePoint Online
  • Microsoft Teams
  • OneDrive for Business
  • Microsoft 365 with Copilot
Export-only option: Archive Alfresco content for compliance or reference without migrating to a new platform 

Typical challenges:

IT professional working on computer during an Alfresco to SharePoint Online migration project

  • Converting Alfresco's aspect-based metadata model to SharePoint content types 

  • Handling custom content models, behaviors, and JavaScript extensions

  • Translating folder hierarchies to SharePoint's metadata-driven structure 

  • Managing community add-ons and custom modules without direct SharePoint equivalents 

  • Extracting content from Community Edition deployments with minimal documentation 

  • Preserving custom workflows, forms, and user interface customizations 

  • Reconfiguring integrations with external systems and applications 

  • Redirecting links that point to archived content

How Xillio addresses this: 

Pre-migration content analysis with Xillio Insights

We analyze your Alfresco repository to map content models, identify applied aspects, assess folder depth, and evaluate metadata quality. This analysis reveals customizations, ROT content, and structural patterns that inform your SharePoint information architecture.

Aspect-to-Content Type Transformation

We design intelligent mappings that combine Alfresco aspects into appropriate SharePoint content types and site columns, preserving metadata richness while simplifying to SharePoint's model.

Flexible Restructuring Options

Choose to preserve folder structures where appropriate or transform to metadata-driven organization with views and filters for improved SharePoint performance and usability.

Battle-Tested Migration Expertise

With 20+ years serving enterprise and public sector organizations, Xillio brings deep expertise in complex content and data migrations.

Our methodologies, refined through hundreds of successful migrations, ensure your Alfresco environment—whether open-source, commercial, or hybrid—is handled with precision and expertise. 

Brooke boosts operational efficiency with SharePoint migration
Harnessing benefits: How migrating to SharePoint boosted Brooke's operational efficiency

Brooke boosts operational efficiency with SharePoint migration

Build America Mutual(BAM): Easier Records Management, Thanks to Documents Set in SharePoint
Build America Mutual(BAM): Easier Records Management, Thanks to Documents Set in SharePoint

Build America Mutual(BAM): Easier Records Management, Thanks to Documents Set in SharePoint

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Why Alfresco to SharePoint Online Migrations can be Complex?

Unique Alfresco Deployments

Alfresco's open-source flexibility—while powerful—creates migration complexity through customizations, community extensions, and implementation variations. Unlike commercial platforms with standardized structures, each Alfresco deployment evolves uniquely based on custom content models, aspects, behaviors, and third-party add-ons that don't translate to SharePoint's standardized architecture. 

Complex Metadata and Content Types

Alfresco's aspect-based metadata model allows documents to dynamically acquire multiple aspects with different property sets—a concept fundamentally different from SharePoint's content type model where each document has one primary type. Organizations must carefully design how to flatten or combine these aspects into SharePoint metadata schemas. 

Automation, Scripts, and Behaviors

The platform's rule-based automation, custom JavaScript behaviors, and web scripts represent business logic embedded in the repository that must be recreated in SharePoint using Power Automate.  

Folder-Centric Organization vs. Metadata-Driven Approach

Alfresco's folder-centric organization, often nested deeply with inherited permissions, requires thoughtful restructuring for SharePoint's metadata-driven approach.

Community Edition & Legacy Versions

Community Edition deployments present additional challenges: limited documentation, non-standard configurations, and custom code developed without enterprise governance. Legacy versions (4.x, 5.x) may use outdated APIs and database schemas requiring specialized extraction approaches. 

FAQ

Can you migrate Alfresco content models and aspects to SharePoint?
Yes. We map Alfresco content models, aspects, and properties to SharePoint content types and site columns, designing schemas that preserve your metadata structure while optimizing for SharePoint capabilities. 
What happens to custom Alfresco rules and behaviors?
We document existing Alfresco rules, JavaScript behaviors, and automation, then provide detailed specifications for recreating equivalent functionality using Power Automate or SharePoint workflows. 
Can you migrate from Alfresco Community Edition?
Yes. Our connector works with both Community and Enterprise editions, handling the variations and customizations common in community deployments even when documentation is limited. 
How do you handle deeply nested folder structures?
We analyze your folder hierarchies and recommend optimal SharePoint structures—either preserving folders where they serve user needs or transforming to metadata-driven organization with views for better performance. 
Can this migration be executed in phases?
Yes. We support phased migrations by site, department, content type, or business unit, allowing Alfresco to remain operational while you gradually transition users to SharePoint and Microsoft 365. 
Do you support export-only migrations for archival purposes?
Yes. If you're decommissioning Alfresco but need to retain content for compliance or reference, we can export documents with full metadata and folder structures to long-term archival storage. 

Ready to consolidate your content in Microsoft 365 without the migration complexity?

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