Migrating or Moving a Channel from one Team to another Team

[SW-SoCo2]

Hello!

We're actively looking for a solution to migrate a Teams Channel from one Team to another.

The scenario: we have a single Org-Wide Team used for various communications/resources going to ALL employees (about 4,700 users).

We have a growing collection of important resources/tools we'd like to build within their own Channels --- but development of these Channels will take time and testing, which of course we DON'T want to do "live and in production" within the Org-Wide Team.

The "rock and a hard place" conundrum:

• A Channel's TYPE can't be changed - so we can't create a Private channel within the Org-Wide Team, do the development, and then convert it to a Standard channel that all employees can access.
• A Channel can't be MIGRATED from one Team to another - so we can't develop the content within a different Team, and then migrate the Channel to the Org-Wide Team.

There appear to be a few third-party tools that say they can "migrate a Channel from one Team to another Team" - but there are multiple limitations about some content types.

Does anyone know of a way to **successfully** migrate a Channel from one Team to another Team?

[#2]

@SW-SoCo2 Third party tools can't currently provide a 100% copy, they are limited by the available APIs that Microsoft provide. In my experience ShareGate does a good job of copying, but it isn't going to be perfect.

You could however use a shared channel, as these can switch their membership style easily. When you first create the channel uncheck the box to Share it with the Team then only the people you choose will have access

Once you are ready to make is available to all you can Share with a Team and select the team which is already where it's located, this will grant access to all the Team members now and in the future.

It's worth considering the other aspects that being a shared channel will bring, for instance having it's own SharePoint side etc.

The other option would be to just name your channel ##DO NOT USE## and make it not Shown for team members by default, people would have to go hunting to find it, I bet they'll have better things to do.

[#3]

Thank you Steven! This is one scenario I didn't think of, and it sounds very workable 🙂 In this case, I don't think having its own SPO back end site will matter a bit.

[#4]

We haven't used Shared Channels much, as our primary focus has so far been on use by tenant members. One thing that's confusing: Shared Channels are described as being available to share with "People you choose from your org or other orgs that have access" - however the information popup says "Accessible to a specific group of people in your org and outside your org. Guests don't have access to shared channels." Isn't a user from another org that's invited to access a resource the definition of a Guest?

[#5]

@SW-SoCo2 Shared channels can allow access to people from other organisations, but it's not at all mandatory. There are lots of examples where it's useful to share a channel between Teams in your tenant. The Teams policy can limit the channels to not allowing external people if you wish.

Adding someone external to a channel doesn't create a guest, it's direct access to the channel using their external identity, the Team will appear in their normal list of Teams, it won't require them to channel switch.

If you already use B2B Guest Access then this is different to how Shared Channels work, and those users can't be added to Shared Channels. Think of there being two separate mechanisms, 

[#6]

@StevenC365 this appears to be the intended functionality but it simply doesn't work.  You cannot share a shared channel with an external account. It doesn't work