1. Transfer process framework

As a admin, you and the Google Workspace Domain Transfer team must follow this process for each transfer from the source environment to the destination environment.

Pre-transfer

Eligibility

1. While you should verify all transfers against the system requirements, the transfer team also validates the system requirements before the transfer process begins.
2. If there are any remediations required, they are presented to you and action must be agreed upon before the transfer is considered eligible.
3. Only eligible transfers are allowed to proceed with the Domain Transfer process.

Preparation

1. The source environment and the destination environment administrators complete all their dry-run blockers.
2. Source and destination admins make final decisions regarding their transfer options.
3. The team schedules a dry-run transfer.
4. The team works with source and destination admins to schedule the transfer.
5. In parallel with the other preparation steps, source and destination admins work through all the pre-transfer tasks, paying close attention to the following deadlines:
   • At least 7 days before the transfer—Complete the indefinite Google Vault retention policies in the source environment.
   • At least 48 hours before the transfer—Consider whether you need to delete or undelete users from the source environment and take action accordingly. Additionally, you must complete the primary domain swap in the source environment.

     For details, go to steps 5 and 6 in Source tasks.

6. The team establishes indefinite Vault retention rules in the destination environment.

Pre-execution

1. A final, fully passing dry-run transfer must be completed 24 hours before the final production transfer.
2. Source and destination admins give authorization for the transfer team to execute the transfer. This can be an email authorization, chat message, or a go/no-go meeting.

During the main transfer

1. The team begins execution of the production transfer at the agreed upon time and provides a ~15 minute warning before execution starts.
2. The team communicates status updates regarding the transfer progress.
3. The production transfer executes in a set order.
4. The transfer process generally completes in 24 hours, but it might take longer depending on the environment size (such as, number of users, groups, Google Drive files, and so on).

For more information on how the transfer process impacts admins and end users, go to Execute the transfer.

Post-transfer

Post-execution

1. The team executes a series of audits and checks for 5–7 days after the production transfer ends.
2. Source and destination admins work through all the post-transfer tasks.
3. There are some known issues and propagation delays that might occur for up to 24 hours post-transfer. For more information on how the transfer process impacts admins and end users, go to Execute the transfer.
4. While most Drive permissions will have propagated, some users might take up to 48 hours to complete.

Audit completion

The team contacts you once the post-transfer audits are complete to conclude the transfer process and request feedback.

Note: For issues that exist after 24 hours and that are not documented here, file a ticket with Google Cloud support.