In July, Microsoft alerted businesses that SharePoint 2010 Workflows would be turned off for newly created tenants in August. In addition, Workflows would be retired altogether on November 1, 2020. For businesses that still rely on SharePoint 2010 workflows, this came as a shocking development. However, all is not lost. Your business still has options. For example, it can transition to Microsoft Power Automate — a more robust workflow solution that has deep integrations with the Office 365 ecosystem.
Still, why is Microsoft pressing the delete key on SharePoint 2010 workflows? And, what does this mean for your business? Most importantly, should you start migrating to Power Automate immediately?
Retiring SharePoint 2010 Workflows
In October 2019, Microsoft announced that SharePoint 2010 would reach end-of-life status in October 2020. However, the tech giant provided another update in July 2020. Then, it announced that it would disable SharePoint 2010 workflows for new tenants in August 2020 and existing tenants in November 2020. Workflows on the chopping block included:
- Approvals workflows
- Collect Feedback workflows
- Collect Signatures workflows
- Classic pages publishing Approval workflows
- Three-state workflows
To Migrate or Not to Migrate, That is the Question
SharePoint has over 190 million users, many of whom leverage SharePoint 2010 for their automated workflows. If you’re one of those businesses, your entire workflow stack is about to hit a snag. For larger businesses, retiring SharePoint 2010 workflows may be a more painful experience. After all, you have a complex stack of workflows that permeate every layer of your business. And, rebuilding powerful features like audit log reports may be next to impossible within such a short timeframe, not to mention configuring Power Automate to deploy approval workflows to multiple lists.
Still, migration appears to be inevitable. While we wait for Microsoft to address the time issue, we recommend using the SharePoint Modernization Scanner tool to scan your entire legacy workflow architecture. It will identify workflows that use SharePoint and determine whether those workflows can be easily migrated to Power Automate. Here’s the question: Should you shift your workflows to SharePoint 2013? Or, should you modernize your stack with Flows and Power Automate?
Microsoft may have made the decision easier for you. In a recent update, Microsoft announced that “SharePoint 2013 workflows will remain supported, although deprecated at some point in the future.” And, that’s the very near future. Specifically (and by default), Microsoft aims to disable SharePoint 2013 workflows for existing tenants starting November 1, 2020. Microsoft will still provide a PowerShell script to activate SharePoint 2013 workflows. However, it expects that even this will be disabled in the near future.
That said, SharePoint Designer 2013 will continue to work with SharePoint Server 2019 until 2026. Note, however, that Microsoft won’t support SharePoint Designer 2013 beyond that timeframe.
Microsoft’s “All-in” Attitude Towards Power Automate
Microsoft’s campaign to retire SharePoint may prove frustrating to users who appreciate the versatility of Workflows. However, the tech giant is simply recalibrating its focus and deploying more support efforts towards Power Automate. Since Power Automate is a more robust overall solution with deep integration into the rest of Microsoft’s Office 365 ecosystem, Microsoft is going “all-in” with Power Automate.
In a nutshell, Power Automate offers greater scalability, more sophisticated workflow automation, and more powerful predictive capabilities. It’s essentially a complete, modernized, and digital transformation-driven solution. Better yet, Power Automate delivers powerful impacts at the user-level, allowing your boots-on-the-ground workers to create dynamic automated workflows for their most labor-intensive processes.
Still, some businesses may have a difficult time transitioning. After all, upending entrenched workflows comes with various challenges.
Are You Ready to Migrate From SharePoint 2010 Workflows to Power Automate?
At Entrance, our team of SharePoint migration experts can offer a seamless transition to Power Automate. Our best-in-class migration solutions provide in-depth analytics and a hassle-free migration. Plus, you won’t lose critical data in the process. Of course, migrating workflows comes with intricate challenges. As such, we’ll handle both migration and implementation for you. In the final scheme of things, we’ll improve your existing workflows, simplify business process automation for your business, and transform your day-to-day operations. For help on navigating SharePoint 2010 Workflows retirement and migrating to Power Automate, contact us today.