Furniture is the visible half of an office move. The half that decides whether Monday morning works is an office relocation IT checklist: the equipment list, the backups, the labels on the cables, the state of the comms room at the new address and the test you run before anybody sits down.
We move offices across Dubai, from a dozen desks in Business Bay to studios in Dubai Production City, and the lifting is always the easy part. What follows is the list we work through with an office manager and their IT people before an office or commercial removal, roughly in the order it needs doing.
Start With a List of Everything That Plugs In
An office move gets manageable the moment somebody writes down every piece of equipment in the building. Walk the floor with a spreadsheet and count towers, laptops, screens, docks, printers, desk phones, card readers, the switches in the cupboard and the small black boxes nobody can identify. Note the serial number, the desk it sits on and who uses it.
That list is what our crew packs against and what you check the kit back in against at the other end. It also settles the awkward questions early: which machines are too old to be worth carrying, which copiers are leased and have to be collected by their supplier, which screens came with the landlord's fit out and stay where they are.
- Serial number, desk number and user for every device
- Leased printers and copiers flagged for their supplier
- Kit being retired, sold or wiped, and who wipes it
- Anything still under warranty or a support contract
Take a Full Backup, Then Prove You Can Restore From It
A relocation is the one week of the year when every machine you own is switched off, carried into a lift and driven across the city. Take a full backup of file servers, databases, mailboxes and anything that lives only on a local drive, and take it days before packing starts rather than on the last evening when the truck is already booked.
Then restore something from it. One folder and one mailbox is enough. A backup nobody has read back is a hope rather than a plan, and move week is a poor time to find that out. Keep one copy off site and out of the truck, and tell staff plainly that anything saved only on their own laptop is theirs to copy somewhere safe by the deadline you set.
Label Cables and Ports Before Anything Is Unplugged
Labelling is the cheapest hour of an office relocation and the first one people skip. Flag both ends of every lead with masking tape and a marker: the desk number, what it plugs into, which port it came out of. Photograph the back of each tower, the back of the switch and the whole patch panel before a single cable moves.
Loose leads travel badly in bulk. Patch cables, power bricks and docks are better bagged per desk than tipped into one carton of tangle. Our crew bags keyboards, mice, leads and monitor arm screws under the same number as the desk they came from, so the bag reaches the new floor with the screen it belongs to.
- Both ends of every cable marked with the desk number
- Photos of each tower, switch and patch panel before unplugging
- Wall sockets and patch panel ports noted against desk numbers
- Power bricks, docks and spare leads bagged per desk
The Server, the Network Cabinet and the New Comms Room
Network cabinets and rack mounted kit need their own slot in the plan. They are heavy for their size, they do not like being tilted, and the decision about whether the equipment travels inside the rack or comes out of it first belongs to your IT people. Agree it at the survey, along with the UPS batteries, which are usually safer carried separately.
The other half of this is the room the cabinet is going into. Before the move date somebody has to stand in the new comms room and confirm it is finished: power at the rack position, cooling that keeps running after hours, cabling terminated and tested, and a labelled patch panel. Air conditioning that switches off in the evening is a problem for a cabinet that runs all night, and that is a conversation with building management.
We carry the equipment. Your network stays with your own team or provider: they power down, unrack and label, we wrap, strap and move in a closed truck, they power up and test. If the fit out is running late, kit and furniture can wait in storage until the space is ready.
A Desk by Desk Plan, Agreed Before Packing Starts
Every crate, screen and pedestal should be going to a numbered position on a plan of the new floor, and the seating has to be signed off by whoever decides it. Changing your mind about who sits where costs minutes on paper and hours on move night. Mark on the same plan how many screens each desk needs, which positions need a dock, and where the floor boxes and sockets actually are.
Shared positions need the same treatment: meeting rooms and their screens, the print corner, reception, the server cupboard. Our office movers place by number rather than by guess, so nobody stands in a corridor at seven in the morning holding a monitor arm and asking where it goes.
Lines, Phones and Door Access at the New Address
The internet line has the longest lead time of anything on this list, so order it first. Ask du or e& for the new address well before the move, and do not assume the package you have now can follow you: some floors are wired for one provider only. If your contract allows it, keep the old line live for a few days afterwards.
Work through the rest while you wait: desk phones and the numbers attached to them, printers and their addresses, Wi-Fi coverage against the new floor plan, card access, the alarm and any cameras. The new office tenancy is registered through Ejari, and buildings often want paperwork in hand before they issue access cards or confirm a goods lift slot. Our guide to move permits and building approvals sets out how that usually runs.
Test It on Sunday, Before Anyone Sits Down on Monday
Most private offices here work Monday to Friday, which leaves Friday evening and Saturday for the move and Sunday for the testing. Use it. The point of a test day is not to confirm the server has power, it is to find the one thing that will stop forty people working while there is still a day in hand to fix it.
Test as a member of staff would, not as an administrator. Sit at an ordinary desk, log in, open a file from the shared drive, print it, join a video call from the meeting room. Then leave the snag list written down and keep someone from IT on the floor for the first morning, because the problems that matter show up when the whole office logs in at once.
- Internet line and firewall up, with the speed checked
- File server and shared drives reachable from an ordinary desk
- Email, calendars and any business software signed in
- Printers, scanners and the meeting room screens
- Wi-Fi walked in every room, not just near the cabinet
- Access cards, alarm and cameras working at both doors
