M365 Changelog: (Updated) Whiteboard – existing Azure board migration to ODB storage – Feb 13, 2025

MC677236 – Feb 13, 2025: Updated February 13, 2025: Migration has now started.

As outlined in MC677236 (July 2024), Azure to OneDrive migration of existing Whiteboards has now started and will reach your tenant (if you haven’t received it already) in the coming months, before June 2025. Complete details can be found in this support article: Migration of Whiteboards from Azure to OneDrive – Microsoft Support.

Action for admins: The migration affects only Microsoft Azure-based Whiteboards. If your tenant does not have any Azure Whiteboards, this migration does not impact you. Check if your tenant has Azure Whiteboards using this PowerShell cmdlet: – Get-WhiteboardsForTenant

Action item for users: Until the migration completes. When your tenant receives the migration code, users can trigger a migration by starting a Whiteboard session from a web browser by simply going to https://whiteboard.microsoft.com/ or by using a Whiteboard in their Teams meetings.

Whiteboard previously stored whiteboard files in Azure storage. In 2022, Whiteboard switched to OneDrive for Business (ODB) as the storage location for most newly created boards. Microsoft is making a client-based migration available for your organization soon. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 117394

When this will happen 

The client-based migration experience will begin in December 2024 (previously July). Microsoft will provide an additional update as it gets closer.

How this will affect your organization 

Any user who launches an eligible Whiteboard client (Whiteboard on Windows, Whiteboard in Teams desktop/web) will automatically kick off a non-blocking migration of all their whiteboards. Depending on how many whiteboards they have, on average the process will take between a few seconds to a few minutes. 

The migration will provide many benefits for your organization and users on the migrated boards, including: 

• Features unique to whiteboards stored in ODB, such as Follow, Commenting, and more. 
• Improved performance on whiteboards now stored in ODB. 
• Improved compliance and security associated with whiteboard being stored in ODB. 

There is no possibility to delay the migration. 

What you need to do to prepare 

The migration will happen naturally and automatically for most users in your organization with no disruption, but please ensure that users are aware they need to launch Whiteboard in one of the previously mentioned clients in order to keep their content prior to the conclusion of migration (date to be announced) 

In the unlikely case that a user’s whiteboards fail to migrate, they will see an error banner. Microsoft will attempt to migrate the board again in 30 days. If the board contains important information, Microsoft recommends the user copy the content to a new whiteboard.  

Users will be able to see which boards have not migrated in a dedicated section on the board picker. Admins will be able to verify what whiteboard content remains in Azure and obtain the userIDs via our PSH cmdlets, if you wish to proactively notify users to get their content. 

As Microsoft gets closer to the release of the client-based migration experience it will provide additional information via Message center.