Build
Office moves and new sites
An empty floor on a date. By the morning your people arrive, the network, the internet, the phones and the printers work, and the line was ordered long before the boxes were packed.
The move is one day. The line takes months.
An office move or a new site has a date everyone knows: the day the desks arrive. The IT behind it has dates nobody sees: when the internet line has to be ordered, when the network has to be in the wall, the night the servers and phones switch. The line is the long one. A new connection can take months, and an office without one has no files, no phones and no remote access. So we plan a move backwards from the day the desks arrive: the line ordered first, the network built before the move, the servers and phones switched in one night, and a plan B over mobile data ready in case the line is late.
The route
Backwards from the day the desks arrive.
An office move follows the same route as every Build project. What makes it special is how much depends on dates other people set: the landlord’s, the carrier’s, the electrician’s.
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Kick-off: the dates
The move date, the day the new floor can be entered, the day the old one has to be empty. From those, counted back: when the line is ordered, when the cabling goes in, when the network is tested.
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The line, ordered first
The line for the new office ordered as early as the plan allows, the old one cancelled only once the new one works. And a plan B agreed: a mobile-data router with a fixed IP address, so servers and remote access run if the line is late.
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Access and safeguard
Every server, phone system and network device documented and backed up before it’s unplugged, with a restore tested. A server that doesn’t boot in the new office has a way back the same night.
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The new floor, built first
Cabling, network, Wi-Fi, the firewall and the site-to-site link built and tested while the old office still runs. Printers and plotters deployed to the devices that need them, without a print server to carry across.
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Switchover: one night
Servers, phones and the line switch between the last day in the old office and the first in the new, out of hours, in an agreed order. Your team hears in advance what changes on Monday and whom to ask.
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Hypercare, then daily operations
Thirty days close to the new site: the printer nobody mentioned, the meeting room that needs a screen. Then into Manage, where the new site gets the same setup, documentation and monitoring as every other.
On record
In the project order and the handover documentation.
- The dates: the move, the line, the cabling, the switch
- The line order and the plan B, with their dates
- The network, Wi-Fi and firewall of the new site, as built
- Every server, phone and printer, as it was and where it is now
- The restore test before the move, with its date
Every site gets the same setup and the same documentation, so a problem at the new office is diagnosed the same way as anywhere else.
What usually goes wrong in a move.
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The line ordered with the desks
The internet line is ordered when the move is booked, not when the lease is signed. The office opens without a connection, and where servers still run on the premises, nothing works, remote access included.
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The old line cancelled first
The old contract ends on the move date, the new line isn’t in, and there’s no way back. The gap between the two is where a plan B earns its keep.
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Moved and plugged in
Servers carried across and switched on without a backup taken first. One that doesn’t boot in the new office has no way back that night.
Also under Build
- Provider exits and takeovers Access secured, systems documented and the switchover planned around your deadlines, even when the handover isn’t friendly.
- Microsoft 365 and Azure migrations Servers and VPNs in the office retired where they no longer earn their keep, service by service.
- Mergers and carve-outs One tenant or two, turned into the structure the deal needs by the legal date, nobody stopping work.
- CAD and BIM environments Workstations, project shares and licence servers built for working across sites, so models stay fast and in sync.
- Rollouts New laptops, software or phones rolled out in waves, a pilot group first, without a lost working day.
Questions we get
What happens if the line isn’t in by the move date?
Then the plan B carries the office: a mobile-data router with a fixed IP address and a roaming SIM, with the servers and the VPN behind it. In the case we show, a property developer’s office ran that way for four and a half months, until the fibre was in.
How early should the line be ordered?
As soon as the lease is signed, and before anything else. A new connection can take months, as it did in our case, and nothing about the move moves faster than the carrier does.
Can the old and the new office run at the same time?
Yes, and for a planned move they should: the new floor is built and tested while the old one still works, and the old line is cancelled only once the new one is in. The night of the switch is then one night, not a week.
Is a small new site a Build project?
A new site with its own servers, phones and line is. A small site that joins an existing setup, a few desks with printers and Wi-Fi, runs inside Manage from the same price list.
Start
Moving, or opening a site?
In a first call we go through your move date, when the line has to be ordered, and what has to work on the first morning.
- No first level
- No surprises
- Pilot before you buy