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Support update for SharePoint 2010 workflows in Microsoft 365

Silver Contributor

Jul 06, 2020

Modern business process is essential for transforming organizational productivity in Microsoft 365. Since the release of SharePoint workflows, Microsoft has evolved workflow orchestration to not only encompass SharePoint, but all the productivity services you use with Microsoft 365 and beyond.

Microsoft Power Automate connects to all Microsoft 365 services and over 220 services to let an enterprise build custom workflows. With the continued investment in Power Automate as the universal solution to workflow, Microsoft is retiring SharePoint 2010 workflows.

SharePoint 2010 workflows will be retired in 2020

For customers using SharePoint 2010 workflows, we recommend migrating to Power Automate during 2020 to maintain continuity in any business process.

Starting August 1^st, 2020, SharePoint 2010 workflows will be turned off for newly created tenants.
Starting November 1^st, 2020, Microsoft will begin to remove the ability to run or create SharePoint 2010 workflows from existing tenants.

SharePoint Modernization Scanner

To understand if your organization is using workflow 2010 or begin planning migration to Power Automate, we recommend that customers run the SharePoint Modernization Scanner tool to scan their tenants for legacy workflows usage. Using the Workflow Report generated by the scanner tool, customers can understand the following:

Distribution of legacy workflows across SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 workflows
Distribution of out of the box and custom legacy workflow usage
Which sites and lists use legacy workflows
Power Automate upgradability score indicating how well the detected actions are upgradable to flows with Power Automate

Using the Workflow Report along with site information, tenant administrators can work with their users to plan the migration of legacy workflows with minimal interruption.

SharePoint 2013 workflows remain supported

SharePoint 2013 workflows will remain supported, although deprecated. However, we recommend customers move to Power Automate or other supported solutions, such as those from Preferred members of our Microsoft 365 Business Apps Partner Program.

Starting in November 2020, SharePoint 2013 workflows will be turned off by default for new tenants. Microsoft will provide a PowerShell script to let customers to activate the SharePoint 2013-based workflow engine for tenant as needed.

Use Power Automate with Microsoft 365 licenses

All Microsoft 365 licenses include usage of the Power Platform for customizing and extending Microsoft 365 applications. This includes both Power Automate and Power Apps.

Power Automate also has additional premium features that you can buy on top of your Microsoft 365 licenses. To learn more about what specific features are included with Microsoft 365 licenses go here.

SharePoint Server support for SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 workflows

SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013-based workflows will continue to be supported for on-premises SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019 Server platforms until 2026.

SharePoint Designer 2013
SharePoint 2010 workflow creation with SharePoint Online using SharePoint Designer 2013 will be turned off for any newly created tenants starting August 2020 and existing tenants starting November 2020. SharePoint Designer 2013 will work with SharePoint Server 2019 for the remainder of the client support lifecycle (2026). SharePoint Designer 2013 will not be supported beyond that timeframe.

Summary

We recognize that these changes may require additional work for some of our customers, and we’re ready to provide support during this transition. We are encouraged by our customer successes, and our ongoing investment in business process modernization in Microsoft 365 on the Power Platform. We’ll continue to share updates through our support articles at https://aka.ms/sp-workflows-support . Thank you.

Published Jul 06, 2020

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Chris McNulty

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Joined June 24, 2016

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64 Comments

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Rodney Parrish
Brass Contributor
Jul 07, 2020
Agree that this is getting to be a habit where the dates we've been given cannot be trusted. We use these product lifecycle dates to plan for depreciation but when an announcement comes out like this, that effectively changes support for SharePoint Designer [might I remind you that the workflow types in SPD 2013 are part of the tool and "supposed" support?] by nearly six years, that it does come down to a matter of trust. I agree with the statement about InfoPath, and despite the above I would not "trust" that your 2013 workflows will be safe either.

Yes, I hear you when you say why are you using legacy workflows when you should be using the newer ones available. Actually we are. And we use the end of support dates to "plan" since many of my peers globally who have been in the business long enough have been using SP Designer. To have plans escalated six years.....is ridiculous. I'm sure there will be a lot of uproar over this.

Finally, all of us use legacy tools. If you use IE11 to access something that won't work in anything else, if you're using classic sites, and older software. Heck, if you're running Windows 7 or 8, you're using legacy software. If you're an IT professional that's been around for any length of time, if you think hard enough, you have or had recent experience with something "legacy". Again, moving from legacy software is something that needs to be done carefully and often over time. We depend on these "sunset" dates for planning purposes. And the new stuff? I can tell you that even in "Flow" or what's called Power Automate, they've already "depreciated" things without any notice at all. So it's not the age of the tool, it's the principal of saying you're going to support something until 2026, and then gutting it six years early and expecting everyone to be happy about it.
HansTeunis
Iron Contributor
Jul 07, 2020
Power Automate is the way forward, but we all have a history we cannot simply discard. In this history for instance I know businesses use the 2010 capabilities for automated permissions management of sharepoint content. Power automate is not as versatile in this. Its only recently released permissions management action can not handle sharepoint permissions groups. Never got the api call alternative working. Now all of a sudden time is running out! Also the 30 day limit of a running flow is not something that is easily circumvented, coming from a no time limit solution.

It is all about trust and managing expectations. The product lifecycle promises support until 2026. So much for that. Who's next? Infopath, also supported until 2026... surely need more than a few months to get all of those into Power Apps, if at all...
Pieter Veenstra
MVP
Jul 07, 2020
At first this might be a bit of a shock for many, but really, why would you still have SharePoint Designer workflows in SharePoint Online. I guess for people that went for the quick migration to the cloud and stick to old technology this could be a bit of a shock. I'm glad that I upgraded my clients to Power Automate as soon as possible. Power Automate is a better option anyway.

For on-premises installations of course it is a completely different story.
HansTeunis
Iron Contributor
Jul 07, 2020
What!! This can't be true! SharePoint 2010 workflow are still heavily used in sharepoint environments! It's functionality to update permissions is unmatched in either SharePoint 2013 workflows or Power Automate! Support of SharePoint designer 2013 is supposed to continue until 2026 according to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search/11674 And now we need to migrate all SharePoint designer workflows to Power Automate in a couple of months. These timelines are madness!

Thx Denis Molodtsov for starting a UserVoice item for this..
Vote to postpone the retirement of the Workflow 2010 engine to a more reasonable date: https://lnkd.in/ePBDVgG.
800+ votes for this idea in less than a week, lot's of comments, I would say this message hit an open nerve Chris... Is this really the way Microsoft wants to instill a sense of trust in the relationship with both customers and partners?