Office Move IT Checklist for GTA Businesses

An office move is one of the few IT projects with a date nobody can push back. The lease ends, the movers are booked, and on the Monday after, people sit down and expect their email, their files, the phones and the printers to work. Most of what goes wrong on that Monday was decided weeks earlier: an internet circuit ordered too late, a firewall nobody had the password for, a floor plan drawn without a single network drop on it.

This checklist is the order we would work through it. It is written by a provider, IT Rapid Support at 7810 Keele St in Vaughan, so read it with that in mind; nothing here depends on who does the work. It is built around how moves actually run in the GTA, where many offices are moving between multi-tenant buildings with their own rules about risers, loading docks and after-hours access.

Three Months Out: Decide What Is Moving and What Is Not

Start with an inventory of what you actually have, not what you think you have. Every workstation and laptop, the firewall, switches and wireless access points, any server or storage box, printers and scanners, phones, and the small devices that get forgotten: the door-entry controller, the alarm panel's internet connection, the label printer in the back room. For each one, decide whether it moves, is replaced, or is retired.

A move is the cheapest moment you will ever have to replace equipment that is near the end of its life. A server that is out of warranty, a firewall that no longer receives security updates or a switch that predates your current internet speed costs labour to unrack, transport and reinstall, and then still needs replacing next year. Buying the replacement for the new address and leaving the old equipment behind for proper disposal is often less disruptive than moving it.

This is also the point to check what lives on the old premises that nobody thinks of as IT: a phone line used by the alarm or a fax-to-email service, a backup appliance on a shelf, a security camera recorder. Each of them either moves or gets a deliberate replacement.

Order the Internet Circuit First

The single item most likely to delay a move is the internet connection at the new address. Business fibre in an office building often needs the carrier to survey the building, run or activate a line through the riser, and coordinate with property management. Lead times vary widely by building and carrier; several weeks is common and longer is not unusual. Ask the carrier for a written installation date as soon as the lease is signed, and do not plan the move around a date that is only verbal.

Order a backup path at the same time. A second circuit from a different carrier, or a cellular failover device, means that if the main line is late or fails in its first week, the office still works. In many buildings a second fixed carrier is not available, which makes cellular failover the practical answer.

Before you sign the new lease, ask the landlord or property manager:

• Which carriers already serve the building, and whether fibre is lit to the floor or only to the building.
• Where the demarcation point is, and whether you can run cabling from it to your suite.
• Whether the suite has a dedicated communications room or closet with power, cooling and a lock.
• What the rules are for contractors: insurance certificates, after-hours access, freight elevator bookings.

Plan the Network for the New Floor Plan

The furniture layout decides where network drops go, and drops are far cheaper to install in an empty suite than after the desks arrive. Mark every desk, meeting room screen, printer, wireless access point and camera on the floor plan, then add spare drops; a common rule of thumb is to allow more than you need, because adding one later means opening ceilings and walls.

Wireless needs the same attention. An access point placement that worked in the old space will not transfer. Concrete cores, glass meeting rooms and the neighbours' networks all change coverage, so plan placement against the new plan and test it once the space is built out. If the suite was previously occupied, find out what cabling is already there and whether it is certified; old cabling left by the previous tenant is not always fit to reuse.

The network design is also where security gets either built in or left out. Separate the guest network from the business network, keep cameras and building systems off the network your staff use, and make sure the new firewall is configured to the same standard as the old one rather than rebuilt from defaults on the night of the move.

Phones, Printers and the Things That Have Their Own Contracts

Phone systems usually have their own provider and their own notice periods. If you are on a hosted VoIP service, the numbers move with the account and the handsets just need a working network; confirm that emergency calling information is updated to the new address, because it does not update itself. If you still have traditional lines, number porting has its own lead time and should be booked early.

Leased printers and copiers are usually moved by the leasing company, not by your movers, and the lease may say so. Book them, and have someone reconfigure scan-to-email and scan-to-folder settings at the new address.

Two Weeks Out: Protect the Data Before Anything Is Unplugged

Confirm that backups are running and that a restore has been tested recently, not just that the job reports success. Equipment is damaged in moves, and a server that is dropped is a far smaller problem when you know the backup restores. If any data still lives only on a local server or on individual desktops, this is a good moment to ask whether it should move to Microsoft 365 or another cloud service instead of moving in a van.

Confirm administrative access while you are at it. You want the current passwords for the firewall, switches, wireless controller, internet account and domain registrar in your own hands, recorded somewhere secure. A move is the wrong week to discover that the only person who knew the firewall password left two years ago.

Label everything. Each device, each cable and each desk gets a label that matches the new floor plan, so the reinstall is a matter of following a list rather than remembering.

Move Weekend: Cut Over in a Sensible Order

Most moves are cut over on a Friday evening or over a weekend so staff lose as little time as possible. The order that tends to work is:

• Bring up the internet circuit and firewall at the new site first and confirm the connection, ideally before move weekend.
• Install and power the switches and wireless, and confirm every drop that matters is patched and live.
• Bring across any server or storage and confirm it starts cleanly and the backup runs.
• Set up workstations, printers and phones desk by desk against the labelled plan.
• Test from a sample of desks: sign-in, email, file access, printing, phones, remote access and any line-of-business software.

Keep the old site's internet service active until the new site has been working for at least a few days. Overlapping one extra month is cheap insurance against the new line failing in its first week.

The First Week at the New Address

Have someone available on site on the first morning. Most first-day issues are small: a monitor cable, a desk on the wrong network port, a printer that needs re-adding. They take minutes to fix in person and an hour to fix by phone with someone who is trying to work. After the first week, update the documentation: the new network layout, the circuit details, the carrier contact and the account numbers, so the next person to work on it starts from an accurate picture.

Then deal with the old site. Equipment left behind should be wiped and disposed of properly, any drives containing business data should be securely erased or destroyed, and services at the old address cancelled once the overlap period ends.

Who Should Run It

A small office with one or two people in IT can run much of this internally. What usually overwhelms an internal team is not any single task but the volume of coordination in the last two weeks, on top of keeping everyone supported. That is the situation co-managed IT is designed for: your internal person keeps the decisions and the relationships, and an outside team takes the cabling coordination, the weekend cutover and the first-week support load.

Businesses on a managed IT agreement should expect their provider to plan and run the move as a project, and should ask up front how it is scoped and billed, because moves are commonly quoted separately from monthly support. For businesses without an agreement, we bill general IT work at CA$185 an hour plus 13% HST and scope a move in writing before work starts. If your new office is in York Region, our managed IT services in Vaughan page explains how ongoing support works close to our office; for the city itself, see IT support in Toronto.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far in advance should we plan the IT side of an office move?

Start as soon as the lease is signed. The internet circuit at the new address is usually the longest lead item, and the floor plan needs network drops marked before the build-out, not after. Two to three months gives room for both; less is possible but leaves little margin if a carrier date slips.

Can we keep our phone numbers when we move?

Usually, yes. Hosted VoIP numbers move with the account and only need the emergency address updated. Traditional lines can generally be ported, but porting has its own lead time, so book it early and confirm the date in writing with the carrier.

Should we move our server or replace it?

If it is near the end of its warranty or support life, a move is the cheapest moment to replace it or retire it in favour of cloud services, because you pay the labour to move it either way. If it is current, move it, with a tested backup taken before it is unplugged.

What is the most common IT mistake in an office move?

Ordering the internet circuit too late. Everything else can be worked around for a few days; an office without a working connection cannot. Ordering a cellular or second-carrier backup at the same time removes most of that risk.

Does a move change our IT security?

It can. A firewall rebuilt in a hurry, a guest network that ends up on the same segment as the business network, or old equipment left behind with data on it are all common after moves. Treat the new network configuration as a security review, and make sure retired drives are wiped or destroyed. To talk through a move, call (289) 582-9930 or contact us.