Migrating primary user domain to an alias.

[Matthew Hampton]

Hi, my name is Matthew Hampton. I am a new Google Workspace Administrator and avid fisherman.

I am currently performing a user domain migration in an environment. For SOME of the users, I will swap the user alias with the primary domain, and subsequently remove the old domain from the user’s aliases. I want to know the risks to the users that have their primary email swapped.

Based on my research strewn across 2 or 3 KBs, these are the problems for end users I’ve identified: 

1. Users will need to sign in to their accounts using the primary domain name. Okta may be able to hide this issue however.

2. You will have inconsistent branding in Drive shares and Calendar invites, which always shows the primary email address of the user.

3. The change could take ~10 minutes to complete. 

4. Emails may be dropped during the domain swap to the new primary address.

5. Google App Engine signs in user accounts on the primary domain.

6. Additionally, changing a users primary email address may result in Google Chat issues  "<username> may not be able to use Google chat for up to 3 days"

7. The update will take ~10 minutes.

8. Contacts both local and in the Google Directory may cause confusion for users

9. Google has several recommendations including using temporary accounts for management.

10. Files externally shared with the user showed that they worked after the shuffle.

Does anyone have any advice based on their experience?  Did I miss any other possible issues that end users may encounter?