Content discovery for BI and prepare for migration

The content discovery gives you a complete picture of all files across your entire Microsoft 365 tenant — including all SharePoint sites and Teams document libraries, and OneDrive accounts. Run this discovery before migrating to gain full insight into your tenant content, storage footprint, and metadata landscape.

Content Governance scans the tenant and creates one job item per library in the Job list. Each job is created in the context of the source tenant, and is pre-configured for the subsequent migration action — the same job item that drives the discovery scan is later reused to drive the migration, so jobs do not need to be recreated when moving from discovery to migration. Each job item represents a single library or OneDrive. The following information is collected for every file:

  • File properties
 File name, file type, folder path, created date, created by, last modified date, and last modified by.
  • Version history
 The total number of versions and the combined size of all versions — reflecting the true storage footprint of each file, not just the current version.
  • Compliance metadata
 Retention label and sensitivity label, enabling compliance-driven analysis and migration scoping directly in SMART BI.
  • Content type
 The SharePoint content type assigned to each file, available for filtering and grouping in all SMART BI reports.
  • Custom metadata
 All individual custom metadata columns defined in each library are collected and stored — regardless of column type or naming — and made available for filtering and analysis in SMART BI.

⏱ Scanning large tenants is time consuming. Due to the depth of data collection — including version history and all metadata for every file — scanning a large Microsoft 365 tenant can take anywhere from several hours to several days. Plan accordingly and consider running the scan outside business hours or over a weekend.

Scan scope
Teams Libraries / SharePoint Libraries Content Governance discovers all SharePoint Document Libraries and Teams document libraries across the entire tenant. One scan job is created per library, so each library is scanned and reported on individually in SMART BI.
OneDrive OneDrive accounts are not auto-identified during the tenant scan. They are configured separately in the OneDrive dialog — see OneDrive configuration below. One scan job is created per mapped OneDrive, giving individual visibility into every user’s storage footprint, file activity, and metadata landscape.
OneDrive configuration
  • Click Next
 After the tenant scan step, click Next to open the OneDrive configuration dialog. OneDrive accounts are configured here because each OneDrive must be paired with a target Nextcloud user and an app password before it can be discovered and migrated.
  • Automatic mapping
 Content Governance matches each Microsoft 365 user to its corresponding Nextcloud username automatically. Use this when M365 and Nextcloud identities follow a consistent naming convention across both systems.
  • Manual mapping
 Map M365 users to Nextcloud users individually with manual intervention. Use this when identities differ between systems, or when you want to scope OneDrive discovery and migration to a specific subset of users.
  • App password
 For each mapped user, supply the Nextcloud app password used to authenticate WebDAV access during the scan and the subsequent migration.
SharePoint metadata — automatic MetaVox column creation
Automatically create SharePoint custom columns in MetaVox app Applies only when the job is reconfigured from discovery to migration; this option has no effect during the discovery scan itself. When enabled, Content Governance inspects every SharePoint library and reads all custom columns defined there — including Choice, Text, Date, Numeric, and Managed Metadata column types. For each library, Content Governance automatically creates matching metadata columns in the MetaVox app in Nextcloud, maps and transfers all source values from SharePoint to MetaVox during migration, and creates a MetaVox view so the columns are immediately visible and usable in Nextcloud. This means your entire SharePoint metadata landscape is fully preserved in Nextcloud — with zero manual column configuration required. You can set the option now and it will be carried into the migration phase, or leave it for when you reconfigure the job.
SharePoint views — automatic MetaVox view creation
Automatically recreate SharePoint views in MetaVox app When automatic column creation is enabled, Content Governance additionally reads every view defined on each SharePoint library and recreates it as a corresponding view in the MetaVox app in Nextcloud. For each SharePoint view, Content Governance creates a matching MetaVox view with the same columns in the same order and applies the first sort column from the SharePoint view’s sort specification — preserving the view definition to the extent that MetaVox currently supports. Your users land in Nextcloud with the same list layouts they already know, with zero manual view configuration required.
Job status
Ready Scan jobs are set to Ready immediately after creation and will be picked up and executed by Content Governance automatically. Choose this option to start collecting Business Intelligence data right away.
Hold Scan jobs are created but remain paused. No scanning takes place until you explicitly start them from the Job list. Choose this option if you want to review or adjust jobs before the scan begins.