TL;DR
- Order the new fibre or LTE backup before you book the floor. Lead times are the item that slips.
- Walk the new site and write a bill of materials. Do not pull cable from a furniture plan alone.
- Keep a tested backup that is not sitting in the rack you are about to unplug.
- Microsoft 365 moves with the tenant, not with the office. PCs, printers and the server may not.
- Wi-Fi is part of the cabling job. Access points without a proper run fail on day one.
- We quote installation work. We do not publish a fixed “office move” package price.
An office move IT checklist is a sequence, not a shopping list. The business still has to invoice on the Monday after the move. This is the order we use when a Johannesburg or West Rand office changes buildings. It is not a write-up of one unpublished fit-out.
What should you confirm before you sign the lease?
Confirm that the new address can actually get a line, and that there is a place for a rack that is not a broom cupboard.
Ask the landlord, in writing, about existing sleeves, risers and whether you may pull cable. A pretty open-plan photo does not show containment. If the answer is vague, budget a site walk before you promise a move date to staff.
Book the connectivity order the same week. A fibre install that misses the move leaves you on a temporary link, and the rest of the checklist gets harder.
What belongs on the site walk?
The rooms, the warehouse if there is one, power, and the path from the street to the cabinet.
On the walk, write down:
- Where the fibre or microwave will enter, and where the rack or edge cabinet will stand.
- Which desks, meeting rooms, tills or packing points need a cable, not only Wi-Fi.
- Whether two parts of the building need fibre between them rather than a long copper run.
- Where access points must sit so the floor is covered, including a mezzanine or a warehouse aisle.
- What has to happen after hours so the current office can keep working until cutover.
That list becomes the bill of materials for office network installation and cabling. Contact us for a quote for the install. There is no honest per-point price without the walk.
What has to be backed up before anyone unplugs a server?
Anything you would struggle to recreate, copied somewhere that is not the server you are about to put on a trolley.
Use the questions in POPIA and backups: what personal information is in the set, where the second copy lives, and when a restore was last tested. Then match systems to the published lines on off-site backup:
- Microsoft 365 backup: R65 per user per month.
- Endpoint backup: R90 per device per month.
- Server backup: R850 per server per month.
If the only backup is a disk in the rack, moving day is a bad day to discover that. AJM Engineering is the published example of backups that had already stopped. Do not repeat that pattern because the office is busy.
What moves with Microsoft 365, and what does not?
Mail, OneDrive and SharePoint move with the tenant. The PCs, the printer, the server and the Wi-Fi do not.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium is R400 per user per month on the calculator if you still need the licence. Movers do not reconfigure Outlook. Before the weekend, check that leavers are actually removed and that someone other than the owner can reset a password. A migration from another mail system is a separate quote. Do not start it in the same weekend as the physical move unless that scope was written down earlier.
How should Wi-Fi be ready for the first Monday?
Access points go in with the cable, and someone tests them where people will sit, not only next to the rack.
Treat Wi-Fi as its own design even though it shares the cabling project. Offices, warehouses and guest buildings fail in different ways. The published ones are African Elephant Lodge (Cat6 plus Reyee after a failed CCA install) and the Midrand warehouse. The service page is business Wi-Fi for offices and warehouses. Monitoring after go-live is R350 per site per month. Installation itself is quoted.
What should the cutover weekend include?
A short list, an owner for each line, and a way to roll back if the new line is not up.
- Confirm the new link is live, or that the temporary link is tested.
- Move or rebuild the firewall. Managed firewall care afterwards is R450 per site per month if you want it watched.
- Patch the cabinet, label both ends, and test the runs on the bill of materials.
- Bring up Wi-Fi and join a laptop from the far desk, not from the comms room.
- Print, scan and open the accounting app from a normal PC.
- Leave the old site’s equipment only when the new site has already done those tests.
On-site time beyond the quoted install is R650 per hour on the calculator. Say so in the plan, so moving weekend is not a surprise invoice.
Who keeps it running after the move?
Whoever you name. A finished network with nobody watching it is how the next fault waits until a Monday.
Managed IT is the month-to-month option: Starter from R650 per user per month, Partner from R950. If the new office is on the West Rand, the local page is IT support West Rand, from the Wilgeheuwel office. One page, not a copy for each suburb.
Book a free IT audit if the move date is already in the diary and the IT list is still a guess.