How to Test Your IT Systems After an Office Move

You have finally moved into your new office. The desks are arranged, the chairs are in place, and the kettle is working. But before you declare the move a success, there is a critical checklist that too many UK businesses overlook: systematically testing every element of your IT infrastructure to ensure it is functioning correctly in the new environment.

An office move involves far more than physically relocating hardware. Network configurations change, internet circuits are provisioned on new lines, phone systems may need reconfiguring, and subtle differences in the new building's electrical and cabling infrastructure can cause unexpected problems. Without thorough post-move testing, issues that could have been caught and resolved on day one may instead surface during a critical client call, a major deadline, or — worst of all — a security incident.

This comprehensive guide provides a structured testing framework that covers every aspect of your IT systems, from basic connectivity through to security validation and disaster recovery verification.

Why Structured Testing Matters

The temptation after an exhausting office move is to declare victory as soon as the internet appears to be working and people can access their email. This is a dangerous shortcut. In our experience supporting hundreds of UK office relocations, the most costly problems are rarely the obvious ones. It is the subtle issues — a misconfigured firewall rule that leaves a port exposed, a backup job that silently fails because the network path has changed, or a VoIP system that works perfectly until ten people join calls simultaneously — that cause the greatest disruption weeks later when the IT team has moved on to other priorities.

Structured testing transforms an uncertain situation into a known quantity. By methodically working through each layer of your IT infrastructure, you build confidence that your systems are not merely functioning but are performing correctly, securely, and at the level your business requires. The testing framework presented below follows a logical progression from foundational infrastructure through to business continuity, ensuring that each layer is validated before moving to the next. This layered approach mirrors the OSI model of network architecture — you cannot meaningfully test application performance if the underlying network layer is unreliable.

It is also worth noting that thorough post-move testing creates valuable documentation. The results of your tests establish a new performance baseline for your office, which becomes an essential reference point for troubleshooting any issues that arise in the weeks and months following the move. Without this baseline, diagnosing whether a reported problem is genuinely new or a pre-existing condition becomes significantly harder. Your IT support provider — whether internal or external — will be far more effective at resolving future issues if they can compare current performance against documented post-move benchmarks.

Phase One: Network Connectivity and Internet Access

The foundation of every modern office IT system is the network. If your network is not functioning correctly, nothing else will work properly. Start your testing here and do not move on until every element is confirmed.

Internet Connectivity

Verify that your internet connection is active and delivering the speeds you are paying for. Run speed tests from multiple devices and multiple locations within the office. Compare the results against your contracted bandwidth. If you have ordered a leased line, you should be seeing symmetrical speeds very close to the contracted rate. If you are on FTTP or FTTC, expect some variance but the results should be within reasonable tolerance.

Test at different times of day if possible. Some connectivity issues only manifest under load — for example, during the morning when all employees are logging in simultaneously, or during video conferencing peaks.

Internal Network

Verify that all network switches are operational and that every Ethernet port in the office is live and connected to the correct VLAN. Test connectivity between devices on the same subnet and across subnets. Confirm that your DHCP server is assigning IP addresses correctly and that DNS resolution is working for both internal and external domains.

If your new office uses structured cabling, have the cabling contractor provide test certificates for every cable run. Faulty or poorly terminated cables are one of the most common causes of intermittent network issues in new offices.

Wi-Fi Coverage

Walk through every area of the new office with a Wi-Fi analysis tool and verify that signal strength is adequate throughout. Pay particular attention to meeting rooms, breakout areas, and any spaces with thick walls or metal partitions that could attenuate the signal. Common problem areas include server rooms (ironically), basement offices, and spaces adjacent to lifts or stairwells.

Documenting Your Network Baseline

As you conduct your network testing, document everything methodically. Record the speed test results from each network point, noting the date, time, and device used. Map the Wi-Fi signal strength readings across the entire floorplan, creating a heat map that you can reference if coverage complaints arise later. This documentation serves a dual purpose: it provides immediate evidence of any shortfalls that need addressing, and it establishes a performance baseline against which future issues can be measured. A network that delivers ninety-five per cent of contracted bandwidth on day one but drops to sixty per cent after three months may indicate a developing fault that would go unnoticed without baseline data.

If your new office has multiple floors or distinct wings, test the connectivity between these areas thoroughly. Cross-floor traffic often traverses different network switches and sometimes different network segments, and misconfigurations in inter-VLAN routing or switch uplinks can create intermittent connectivity problems that are difficult to diagnose without structured testing. Verify that latency between floors is consistent and within acceptable parameters for your applications, particularly any real-time services such as VoIP or remote desktop sessions that are sensitive to even small increases in network delay.

Consider the capacity requirements of your busiest periods as well. A network that performs admirably with five users connected may struggle when your full complement of forty staff are all streaming video conferences at half past nine on a Monday morning. If your business has predictable peak usage patterns, try to simulate those conditions during your testing phase rather than discovering capacity limitations during actual business operations. Run simultaneous speed tests from multiple devices, initiate several video calls at once, and transfer large files between departments concurrently to stress-test your infrastructure under realistic conditions.

Phase Two: Core Business Applications

Once basic connectivity is confirmed, move on to testing every business-critical application. The goal is to verify that each application works correctly from the new location — not just that it loads, but that it performs all its core functions without errors.

Email and Communication

Test sending and receiving emails from multiple accounts. Verify that email signatures are rendering correctly, that attachments can be sent and received without issues, and that shared mailboxes and distribution lists are functioning. If you use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or another video conferencing platform, conduct test calls — both audio and video — from multiple meeting rooms and workstations. Check screen sharing functionality as well, as this often reveals network configuration issues that simple browsing does not.

Cloud Services

Log into all cloud platforms your business relies on — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, CRM systems, accounting software, project management tools — and verify full functionality. Pay special attention to any services that use IP-based access restrictions, as your new office will have a different public IP address. This is a particularly common issue with banking portals, government gateways (such as HMRC), and industry-specific regulatory systems.

Line-of-Business Applications

If you run any on-premises applications or connect to hosted application servers, test every function that your team uses on a daily basis. This includes creating, editing, and saving records; running reports; printing; and any integrations between systems. Do not rely on a quick login and assume everything is fine — have representatives from each department run through their typical daily workflows.

User Acceptance Testing

Technical testing by your IT team is essential, but it should be complemented by user acceptance testing performed by representatives from each department. Your IT team will verify that systems are technically functional, but only the people who use those systems daily can confirm that their specific workflows are unaffected. A finance team member running their month-end reporting process will exercise different system capabilities than an IT engineer running a quick connectivity test. The same principle applies to every department — your marketing team may rely on integrations between their CRM and email marketing platform that the IT team would never think to test.

Create a simple testing checklist for each department and ask team leaders to work through it during the first two days in the new office. The checklist should cover every application and process their team relies on, including any integrations between systems. For example, the sales team should verify not just that the CRM loads, but that emails sent from the CRM are delivered correctly, that calendar integration is synchronising, and that any automated workflows or triggers are firing as expected. The finance team should process a test invoice end-to-end, run a sample payroll report, and verify that their bank feeds are still connected and importing transactions correctly.

Encourage staff to report any anomalies, no matter how minor they seem. A slight delay in saving a document, an occasional screen flicker during video calls, or an application that takes noticeably longer to load than it did in the old office can all be early indicators of underlying issues that may worsen over time. Capturing these observations early gives your IT team the opportunity to investigate and resolve them before they escalate into genuine productivity problems. Set up a dedicated Teams channel or shared document where staff can log issues as they encounter them, ensuring nothing gets lost in the post-move chaos.

System Category	Tests Required	Responsible Person	Priority
Email (Microsoft 365)	Send, receive, attachments, shared mailboxes	IT Lead	Critical
VoIP Phone System	Inbound, outbound, voicemail, call routing	IT Lead	Critical
Accounting (Xero/Sage)	Login, invoicing, bank feeds, reporting	Finance Manager	Critical
CRM System	Login, record creation, email integration	Sales Manager	High
File Sharing (SharePoint/OneDrive)	Upload, download, sync, permissions	IT Lead	High
Printers and Scanners	Print from all workstations, scan to email	Office Manager	Medium
Video Conferencing	Audio, video, screen share from each room	IT Lead	High

Phase Three: Telephony and Communication Systems

Modern VoIP phone systems are heavily dependent on network quality. After an office move, telephony testing should be conducted methodically to ensure call quality meets acceptable standards.

Test inbound calls to your main number and verify that the auto-attendant or receptionist routing is working correctly. Test direct dial numbers for key staff. Make outbound calls to both landlines and mobiles. Check voicemail recording and retrieval. If you use call queues or hunt groups, test that calls are being distributed correctly.

Pay particular attention to call quality. VoIP calls are sensitive to network latency, jitter, and packet loss. If you notice choppy audio, echoing, or dropped calls, this likely indicates a network quality issue that needs addressing — possibly QoS (Quality of Service) configuration on your switches or router.

Mobile and Conferencing Equipment

Beyond the desk-based phone system, verify that all mobile and conferencing equipment is working correctly in the new office. Meeting room speakerphones, video conferencing units, and wireless presentation systems all rely on network connectivity, and their configuration may need adjusting for the new environment. Test each meeting room individually, making calls to external numbers and verifying that both audio and video quality are acceptable from every seat in the room. Pay attention to echo and feedback issues, which are common in rooms with hard surfaces and minimal soft furnishings — a problem that may not have existed in your previous, more established office space.

If your business uses softphone applications on laptops or mobile devices, test these alongside the desk phones. Softphone performance is particularly sensitive to Wi-Fi quality, so test from various locations around the office, paying attention to areas where staff commonly take calls whilst away from their desks. Kitchen areas, informal meeting spaces, and corridors are often neglected in Wi-Fi planning but are frequently used for calls, especially in modern open-plan offices where finding a quiet corner is a necessity. If softphone quality is poor over Wi-Fi, consider whether deploying additional wireless access points or configuring wireless QoS policies could resolve the issue.

Do not overlook your call recording and compliance systems if you operate in a regulated industry. Financial services firms, legal practices, and healthcare providers often have regulatory obligations around call recording, and these systems need explicit verification after a move. Confirm that recordings are being captured, stored correctly, and are accessible for retrieval. A gap in call recording compliance can have serious regulatory consequences that far outweigh the effort of a simple post-move test. Check with your compliance officer to confirm that all recording obligations are being met in the new environment before signing off on the telephony testing phase.

Phase Four: Security Validation

An office move introduces new security considerations that must be validated before you can consider the move complete. Your security perimeter has fundamentally changed, and assumptions that held true in your old office may not apply in the new one.

Firewall and Network Security

Verify that your firewall is correctly configured and all security policies have been migrated from the old location. Run a port scan from outside your network to confirm that only intended services are accessible. Check that intrusion detection and prevention systems are active and receiving updates. If you use a VPN for remote workers, test that VPN connections work correctly to the new office IP address.

Physical Security

IT security is not purely digital. Verify that your server room or network cabinet is properly secured with appropriate access controls. Check that CCTV covers key areas including the server room entrance. Ensure that screens in reception or public-facing areas are positioned so that sensitive information is not visible to visitors.

Endpoint Security and Access Auditing

With the disruption of an office move, it is surprisingly easy for endpoint security to slip through the cracks. Verify that every workstation and laptop is reporting correctly to your centralised antivirus or endpoint detection and response platform. During a move, devices are often disconnected for extended periods, and security agents may fail to reconnect to management servers if network configurations have changed. Pull a compliance report from your security console and cross-reference it against your asset register to identify any devices that have fallen off the radar. Even a single unprotected endpoint represents a potential entry point for malware or a data breach.

Review user access controls in the context of your new office layout. If your old office had specific areas restricted to certain teams — for example, a finance department behind a locked door — verify that equivalent physical and logical access controls exist in the new space. This is also an excellent time to conduct a broader access rights review, removing any permissions that are no longer appropriate and ensuring that the principle of least privilege is being maintained across your systems. Staff changes during a move period are common, and leavers or role changes may not have been reflected in your access control lists during the upheaval of the relocation.

If your organisation uses multi-factor authentication, verify that all MFA tokens, apps, and hardware keys are functioning correctly after the move. Employees who rely on SMS-based authentication may need to verify that mobile reception is adequate in the new building, particularly if the office is in a basement or a building with thick concrete walls that attenuate mobile signals. Consider this an opportunity to upgrade any legacy SMS-based MFA to more secure app-based or hardware token alternatives, improving your overall security posture whilst resolving any reception-related authentication issues in the new premises.

Phase Five: Backup and Disaster Recovery Verification

This is the phase that businesses most commonly skip — and the one that can have the most devastating consequences if something goes wrong. After your move, you must verify that your backup and disaster recovery systems are functioning correctly in the new environment.

Run a full backup cycle and verify that it completes successfully. If you use cloud-based backup, confirm that data is being uploaded at acceptable speeds from your new internet connection. If you have on-premises backup devices, verify that they are correctly connected and reporting to your management console.

Most importantly, perform a test restore. Select a sample of files and at least one complete system image, and restore them to verify that your backups are not only running but are actually recoverable. A backup that cannot be restored is not a backup — it is a false sense of security.

Cloud Backup and Compliance Considerations

If your backup strategy relies on cloud storage, pay close attention to upload speeds from your new internet connection. A backup set that completed comfortably within an overnight window on your old leased line may take significantly longer if your new connection offers lower upload bandwidth. Calculate the time required to upload your daily backup volume at the measured upload speed and verify that it fits within your backup window. If it does not, you may need to upgrade your internet connection, reduce your backup set through better deduplication, or implement incremental backup strategies to stay within acceptable parameters.

For businesses operating under data protection regulations — which in the UK means virtually every business — verify that your backup arrangements still comply with your obligations under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. If your disaster recovery plan specifies a particular Recovery Time Objective or Recovery Point Objective, conduct tests to verify that these targets can still be achieved from your new location. Changes in internet connectivity, network architecture, or physical distance from your recovery site can all affect your ability to meet these commitments. Document the test results carefully, as regulators and auditors may request evidence that your disaster recovery capabilities have been validated following a significant infrastructure change.

If you maintain any on-premises backup media, such as tape drives or removable hard disks, verify that your off-site rotation schedule has been re-established in the new office. It is common for off-site backup rotations to be disrupted during a move and then forgotten in the post-move chaos. Ensure that the staff member responsible for off-site media rotation knows the new procedure and that your off-site storage provider has your updated address for collections. A single missed rotation can leave your business without a viable off-site recovery option, which is precisely the scenario that off-site backups are designed to protect against.

Creating a Post-Move Testing Schedule

Testing should not be confined to the first day after your move. Some issues only become apparent over time as different workloads and usage patterns exercise different parts of your infrastructure. We recommend the following testing cadence.

On day one, focus on critical path testing — can your team access their email, phone system, core applications, and the internet? On day two and three, conduct comprehensive testing across all systems using the framework outlined above. At the one-week mark, review any issues that have been reported and conduct targeted re-testing. At the one-month mark, conduct a full review of system performance, comparing against your pre-move baselines.

Documenting Results and Formal Sign-Off

Create a formal testing record that documents the results of every test conducted during your post-move validation. This document should list each system tested, the tests performed, the results obtained, any issues identified, and the resolution applied. Having a written record protects your business in multiple ways: it demonstrates due diligence to auditors and regulators, it provides a reference for troubleshooting future issues, and it creates accountability for ensuring that identified problems are actually resolved rather than quietly forgotten. A shared spreadsheet or project management tool works well for this purpose, allowing multiple testers to contribute their results in real time.

Implement a formal sign-off process where each department head confirms that their team's systems and workflows are functioning correctly in the new office. This sign-off should only be given after the department has completed its user acceptance testing checklist and any reported issues have been resolved to satisfaction. A signed document from each department gives senior management confidence that the move is genuinely complete from an operational perspective, not merely from a facilities perspective. It also provides a clear record of who confirmed what and when, which is invaluable if issues are discovered later that should have been caught during testing.

Finally, schedule a post-move review meeting for two to four weeks after the relocation. By this point, your team will have been working in the new office long enough to identify any issues that were not caught during the initial testing phases. Use this meeting to review outstanding items, assess overall satisfaction with the IT infrastructure, and capture lessons learned that will be invaluable if your business undertakes another office move in the future. Many organisations find that this review meeting also reveals opportunities for improvement that go beyond simply restoring pre-move functionality — for example, deploying better wireless coverage in the meeting rooms or upgrading the video conferencing equipment in the largest conference room.

When to Involve Your IT Support Provider

If you have a managed IT support provider, they should be heavily involved in both the move planning and the post-move testing. A good provider will have a structured testing methodology and will take ownership of verifying that everything is working correctly. They should provide you with a formal sign-off document confirming that all systems have been tested and are operational.

If you do not have a managed IT provider and are handling the move with internal resources, consider engaging one specifically for the post-move testing phase. The cost of a day or two of professional IT consultancy is trivial compared to the potential cost of undetected issues causing disruption in the weeks following your move.