Moving on from Huddle? Here's the respectful way out.
Let's start with what's true: Huddle, now Ideagen Collaboration Portal, is a serious product.
Government-grade security, used across UK central government, and for years the sensible answer when a trust needed somewhere secure to put board papers and compliance documents that wasn't a shared drive. Trusts moving on now aren't fleeing a failure; they're consolidating: onto the Microsoft 365 they already pay for, with governance and the estate on one set of records. This page is the migration path, including the part where we've built the tooling to carry your documents across.
Why the move happens
You already own the platform. Every trust runs Microsoft 365. A separate portal means paying twice for secure document storage, and asking governors and staff to hold one more login for one more place documents live.
The documents belong with the work. A gas certificate in a portal workspace is filing; the same certificate on the job that produced it, beside the register line it evidences, is assurance. When compliance documents live in the same tenant as the estate records, the governors' report stops being an assembly job.
The product has moved too. Huddle is now Ideagen Collaboration Portal, positioned at enterprise and government client collaboration: a strong direction that says something honest about where school trusts sit in the roadmap.
The board deserves live data. From autumn 2026, boards answer annually for the estate under the DfE's standards. A document portal can hold last term's estates report; it can't show the estate as it is today. GovernanceProof's board view reads from the live records underneath: the case set out in our board portal guide.
Your Huddle documents, carried across properly
Years of board papers and compliance documents are the reason trusts stay put. So we built the bridge.
| Step | What happens | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Connect | Our migration tooling reads your Huddle workspaces via Ideagen's API | Authorise access once |
| 2. Carry across | Documents are filed into your own SharePoint, preserving structure: compliance documents filed by school and category | Nothing: the run is repeatable until everything is across |
| 3. Verify | Spot-check the libraries; the register lines link to their evidence | Review with us at the launch session |
| 4. Go live | Governors join as Microsoft guests; packs, approvals and registers run in GovernanceProof | Retire the portal subscription at renewal |
From then on the documents live in your tenant, under your retention rules, which makes this the last migration of its kind. Whatever you choose in five years, the records stay where they are.
Where Huddle remains the right tool
External collaboration at scale is Huddle's home ground: secure workspaces shared with outside organisations, government-grade certifications, and a pedigree in exactly that job. A trust collaborating heavily with external bodies beyond its own governance may genuinely be best served keeping it for that purpose. This page is about the common trust pattern, board papers and compliance libraries, where consolidation into your own tenant is the stronger position.
What the portal's jobs become
Board packs compile to a single PDF from live records and publish to members. Approvals are e-signed, timestamped per version, written to the register automatically. Policies carry review dates and publish on approval. Compliance documents sit in your SharePoint beside the estate records they evidence: retrievable by duty, school and date. External members become secure Microsoft guests: no licences, no separate passwords, access IT can see and revoke.
And underneath it all runs the estates platform itself (work orders, planned maintenance, inspections, contractors), so the board's estate assurance is a reading, not a reassurance. The full picture is in our guides to academy trust CAFM and school facilities management software.
Questions buyers actually ask
Why do trusts move on from Huddle?
Rarely because it failed them. The usual drivers are consolidation (the trust already pays for Microsoft 365 and wants documents, governance and estates on one platform), the cost of a separate portal subscription, and the product's evolution: Huddle is now Ideagen Collaboration Portal, positioned at enterprise and government client collaboration rather than school trusts specifically.
Can you migrate our documents out of Huddle?
Yes: we've built migration tooling that reads Huddle workspaces and files the documents into your own SharePoint, preserving structure and filing them by school and category, with the run repeatable until everything is across. Your documents end up in your own tenant, which means this is the last migration of its kind you'll do.
Does EstateProof replace what we used Huddle for?
If you used Huddle for board packs, approvals and compliance document libraries, the common pattern in trusts, then yes: GovernanceProof covers packs, e-signed approvals, policies and registers, and the compliance documents live in your SharePoint alongside the estate records they evidence. If you used Huddle to collaborate with external organisations at scale, that's genuinely Huddle's home ground; see the note on the page.
What happens to external members and guests?
They become secure Microsoft guests in your tenant, no licence cost, sign-in with their existing email, access your IT team can see and revoke. Governors and trustees get read-only governance views built for them rather than a general-purpose portal.
What does it cost compared with Huddle?
Huddle's pricing is quoted rather than published. EstateProof's is published: GovernanceProof comes with Platinum at £1,650 per school per year ex VAT at the largest band, including the full estates platform, and there's no per-guest cost for external members. For most trusts the comparison is one consolidated subscription against a portal plus whatever runs the estate.
Huddle / Ideagen Collaboration Portal capabilities checked against Ideagen's public pages on 4 August 2026. Huddle and Ideagen are trading names of their owners; EstateProof has no affiliation with Ideagen beyond published API integration. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
Talk through a Huddle migration
Thirty minutes: what's in your workspaces, what the carried-across libraries look like, and what the board sees on day one. Call 020 4558 7729 or email info@estateproof.co.uk.