The office relocation IT & technology checklist.

The shape of a good move

A relocation is really three projects wearing one name: fitting out the new tenancy, cutting services over on a single weekend, and exiting the old tenancy to the standard the lease requires. Treat them as one program with one owner and the dependencies stay visible. Treat them separately and the gaps between them are where the budget goes.

The single most important fact: the slowest items are the ones you cannot accelerate with money or effort — carrier circuits and landlord approvals. Everything below is ordered around that reality.

Six months out (or as soon as the lease is signed)

1. Fix the dates. New lease start, old lease end, and the overlap between them. The overlap is your safety margin — protect it.
2. Read the old lease's make-good clause. Now, not at the end. It likely covers more than furniture removal — cabling above ceilings and installed systems are commonly included. Check your lease and get advice on what yours actually says.
3. Order the internet for the new tenancy. The longest lead time in the whole move. Confirm what carriers serve the building and get the order lodged.
4. Audit what you own. Every switch, access point, camera, recorder, controller and phone. Mark each one migrate, replace or dispose. This list drives both the new fit-out scope and the defit scope.
5. Ask both buildings the access questions. Approved contractors, inductions, lift bookings, after-hours rules. Two buildings means two sets of rules.

Three months out

1. Lock the new tenancy design. Data point count, door schedule, comms room, Wi-Fi and camera positions — see our fit-out technology checklist for the detail.
2. Book the fit-out works so cabling and security rough-in land before the new ceilings close.
3. Plan number porting and phone changes. Confirm what happens to your numbers and who is lodging the port.
4. Decide the cutover approach. Big-bang weekend or staged? Most tenancy-scale moves are a weekend; write down what must be working by Monday 8am and work backwards.
5. Scope the old-office defit against the make-good clause, and get it priced while you still have leverage on timing.

One month out

1. Confirm the new internet service is live — actually tested, not promised. If it has slipped, arrange an interim service now, while there is still time.
2. Write the cutover runsheet. Task by task, with an owner and a fallback for each. Circulate it; make one person the decision-maker for the weekend.
3. Label everything that is moving. Equipment, cables, boxes — labelled to its destination rack or room, not just "IT".
4. Issue new access credentials. Staff cards or mobile credentials for the new office programmed and ready before anyone needs to badge in.
5. Tell the staff the plan. Last day in the old office, first day in the new, what to pack, what not to touch.

The move weekend — cutover order

The order below exists because each layer depends on the one before it. Resist the urge to parallelise past the dependencies.

1. Network core first. Comms room powered, switches and firewall in, internet confirmed live at the new site.
2. Wi-Fi and floor connectivity. Access points up, workstation points patched and verified.
3. Security systems. Access control and CCTV commissioned or migrated; test doors with real credentials, confirm cameras are recording.
4. Phones and meeting rooms. Handsets or softphones registered, numbers routing, meeting room AV tested with a real call.
5. Workstations last. Desks, docks and monitors — the layer with the most items and the least risk.
6. Walk the floor Sunday afternoon. Test as a new starter would: badge in, connect, print, call, book a room. Fix what fails while contractors are still on site.

The first week after

1. Run a snag list and triage it daily — small faults left unlogged in week one become permanent quirks by month three.
2. Confirm alarm and monitoring reporting from the new site, including after-hours arming schedules.
3. Update registered addresses with carriers, monitoring providers and suppliers.

Closing out the old office

1. Decommission securely. Recorders, controllers and network gear hold footage, credentials and configuration. Wipe them properly before disposal — a skip bin is not a decommissioning process.
2. Complete the make-good defit to the standard the lease requires, with photos and documentation for the landlord.
3. Cancel old services — internet, monitoring, maintenance agreements — from the right date, in writing.
4. File the documentation for the new office. As-builts, test results, credentials, warranty terms. The move is finished when the paperwork is, not when the boxes are unpacked.