Introduction
The historical Assignments & Grade Book feature is being retired. It can no longer be enabled for new courses, and learners can no longer view or submit existing assignments from course pages.
Assignment migration enables you to preserve existing assignments and associated data by converting them to assessments. Afterward, course and catalog admins can manage the assessments from the course configuration panel.
Before starting the migration, review the behavior and limitations described in this article. In particular, assignment tags, opening dates, and closing dates aren't recreated in assessments. Assignment due dates are retained.
About the migration
This migration must be initiated by an LMS admin or Microsoft365 global admin. During the migration, assignments on your tenant are converted to assessments. Individual assignments can't be selected for migration.
An assignment is eligible for migration if it's added to a course that is active, regardless of its publishing status. Assignments that aren't used in courses can't be migrated. Assignments added to deleted courses, or to courses that are part of a deleted catalog, can't be migrated.
IMPORTANT
The courses that assignments are migrating into must have at least one course admin assigned. Assignments from courses with no admins won't be migrated.
Once you run the migration:
- Assessments will be created in existing courses that currently contain assignments. Assignments that were part of deleted courses won't be migrated.
- Assignment tasks (including progress, grades, and history) will be recreated as new assessments.
- Assignment due dates are retained. For migrated assignments that have a due date, the assignment's due date is retained in the new assessment.
- Assignment comments and uploaded files will be preserved. To preserve migrated data, file upload limits and file type restrictions aren't enforced during migration.
- Assignments, grade books, and scales will become read-only. New assignments can no longer be created, and existing assignments can no longer be approved or returned. Learners will no longer be able to complete and submit assignments.
- Assignments that have a future Opening Date or a Closing date in the past will be migrated as hidden assessments. You can make them visible again via the training configuration panel.
- If a legacy assignment is part of a course completion set, the new assessment will be included in the course's default completion set. However, a course or catalog admin must review and edit the settings manually.
- Course admins will be assigned as assessment supervisors. For migrated assessments, the Require learner to upload a file for review and Display supervisor names toggles in the course configuration panel > Content > select an assessment > Edit assessment are disabled by default.
- Grading scales that are currently in use in assignments will be migrated and converted to assessment grading scales. Grading scales that aren't connected to current assignments won't be migrated. If the percentage scale doesn't cover the full range from 0 to 100, or contains gaps, it will be migrated with errors. The migrated scale can be used only in the courses where it was previously used and can't be selected for other assessments.
The following table shows the legacy assignment statuses before the migration, and how they'll be displayed once they're migrated to assessments.
| Legacy assignment status | New assessment status |
| Not started | Not started |
| Submitted | Pending review |
| Returned | Returned |
| Completed | Completed |
The post-migration report provides details on migrated, skipped, and failed items.
Limitations
The migration focuses on preserving essential assignment data, but some elements aren't currently recreated in assessments:
- Assignment tags won't be migrated.
- Assignment opening and closing dates won't be recreated in assessments.
Assignment due dates are retained in migrated assessments.
The presence of assignment tags, opening dates, due dates, and closing dates won't block the migration.
Run the migration
Required role: LMS admin or Microsoft365 global admin.
This action can't be undone.
To migrate legacy assignments to assessments:
1. Go to the Learn365 Admin Center > All catalogs > Global settings > LMS configuration > Assignment migration. The Assignment migration panel opens. Here, you see information about assignment migration and limitations.
TIP
If you have questions or want to validate your scenario before proceeding, create a support ticket and describe your use case. Our team can help review your workflow, answer questions, and highlight anything you should consider before migrating.
2. Select Start migration. The Confirmation dialog opens. This dialog shows information about the number of affected courses and assignments that will be migrated.
3. When you're ready, select Confirm.
The migration process runs in the background and an in-progress notification is displayed.
4. When the migration is complete, the notification displays a green checkmark and a link to download the migration report. If the migration completes with errors, the notification displays a red x. The post-migration report lists details of the errors.
After the migration
Check the assignment migration status
Required role: LMS admin or Microsoft365 global admin.
If all assignments were successfully migrated, the Assignment migration panel displays the "You've already migrated assignments on this tenant" message, along with a link to download the post-migration report. The Start migration button is no longer displayed.
If one or more assignments failed to migrate, you’ll see the “Assignments have previously been migrated on this tenant. Run the migration again to process any remaining assignments” message, along with the number of assignments that were migrated successfully and those that couldn’t be migrated. To see which assignments failed to migrate and why, download the post-migration report.
Successfully migrated grading scales, assessments, and course completion settings are now ready for review.
Download the post-migration report
Required role: LMS admin or Microsoft365 global admin.
The migration report is a .CSV file that shows the number of assignments that migrated successfully (Total migrated) and the number that failed (Total failed).
The report contains the following columns:
- Assignment Id. The ID of the assignment.
- Assignment name. The title of the assignment.
- Course Id. The ID of course that the assignment was a part of.
- Course name. The name of the course that the assignment was a part of.
- Migration Status: Success or Failed. If migration failed, the reason is also displayed.
Retry migration
Required role: LMS admin or Microsoft365 global admin.
If one or more assignments failed to migrate, you can make the necessary changes and retry the migration.
For example, if a migration failed because a course that assignments were migrating into didn't have a course admin, ensure at least one course admin is assigned and retry the migration.
Review migrated grading scales
Required role: LMS admin.
Grading scales that were created via successful migration are displayed in the Learn365 Admin Center > All catalogs > Global settings > Learning configuration > Grading scales. LMS admins can edit the migrated grading scales the usual way.
NOTE
Migrated grading scales that aren’t continuous can be used only in the courses where they were previously used. They can’t be selected for other assessments.
Review assessments
Required role: catalog admin or course admin.
Assessments that were created via successful migration are displayed on the training configuration panel of the relevant courses, and can be managed as regular assessments. For migrated assessments that have a due date, the original assignment due date is retained. Admins can change the assessment's date configuration in the same way as for other assessments.
Review course completion settings
Required role: catalog admin or course admin.
If you're using course completion settings for assessments, ensure the settings for migrated assessments are correct and any legacy assignments are deselected.
1. Go to the Course completion settings of the course where new assessments were created during the migration.
2. Select the default completion set, and from the Actions panel, select Edit course completion set.
3. Deselect any legacy assignments that are still marked as required for completion.
4. Select any assessments as needed, along with the value in the Required Result ≥ column.
5. When you're done, select Save.