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Microsoft SharePoint Blog
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SharePoint Alerts retirement

BertJansen's avatar
BertJansen
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May 12, 2025
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Updated Aug 12, 2025
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Lauren_R's avatar
Lauren_R
Brass Contributor
Jun 11, 2025

Our employees rely on alerts and can't get the same functionality out of the new solution with equivalent ease. I notice changes in the Automate menu in SharePoint lists and libraries every time I try it, so I'm hesitant to rewrite our internal documentation. Some thoughts and observations: 

  • We need documentation on what Microsoft plans to launch under the Automate dropdown and how users should think, evaluate, and prioritize when visiting the dropdown to choose from Flows, Rules, Quick Steps, or Approvals. It's very confusing, because while rules are quick and fairly user-friendly, the rest of the options are not. Listing them together makes them seem equally usable. 
  • We noticed there's a limit of 15 rules per list or library. That's too few. 
  • We cannot find a way to set a rule to trigger when an item is added to a particular view. This is a feature we use heavily in alerts. 
  • Emails triggered by rules link to the SharePoint lists app instead of the site where the item lives. That's disorienting to our users, who expect a link to the item in the SharePoint site where it resides. 
  • Today, an email triggered by a rule links to the item itself for libraries while an email triggered by a rule links to the whole list and highlights the item in red. Alerts is more consistent and people can follow an alert email to land in the item in the list on the SharePoint site. 

 

  • JimEA's avatar
    JimEA
    Brass Contributor
    Jul 02, 2025

    Additional  Things I've Learned

    • You can only have up to 10 email addresses per rule.
    • You can only have up to 15 rules per library or list.
    • While it looks like you can set a rule for a document in a library, the rule will apply to the entire library.  i.e. if you are trying to set up a rule to notify you when a document changes, the rule will notify you when any document in that library changes.
    • You can set up a rule to notify you when an item changes and select a specific column to check.  You can also set up criteria for that column.  Then you can be notified only if the column changes and the change matches the criteria, i.e. set up the rule to check if documents are modified by someone other than you.
    • You cannot select a column with criteria to notify you if when documents with that criteria are modified (notify me when documents with a Status of Closed are modified)
    • You cannot specify the frequency of the email notifications like you could with Alerts.  With Alerts you could select a Summary option and choose which day of the week and time of day to receive Alerts.

     

    While I still like the Rules, especially the ease of maintenance, I'm hoping that they will incorporate some of the functionality they had with Alerts such as being able to set up a Rule at the document level without needing to create a workflow using Power Automate.

    • dkahanda's avatar
      dkahanda
      Copper Contributor
      Jul 02, 2025

      Hi JimEA,

      Thanks so much for your reply to my post and it is very useful to know the limitations, when replacing the classic alerts with Rules. Like you said I hope Microsoft will incorporate at least some of the functionalities we had with alerts.

    • JimEA's avatar
      JimEA
      Brass Contributor
      Jul 02, 2025

      sorry about the double post, my first post wasn't showing until I reposted.

  • JimEA's avatar
    JimEA
    Brass Contributor
    Jul 02, 2025

    To add to your list here is what I have found:

    SharePoint Rules - Things I've Learned

    • You can only have up to 10 email addresses per rule.
    • You can only have up to 15 rules per library or list.
    • While it looks like you can set a rule for a document in a library, the rule will apply to the entire library.  i.e. if you are trying to set up a rule to notify you when a document changes, the rule will notify you when any document in that library changes.
    • You can set up a rule to notify you when an item changes and select a specific column to check.  You can also set up criteria for that column.  Then you can be notified only if the column changes and the change matches the criteria, i.e. set up the rule to check if documents are modified by someone other than you.
    • You cannot select a column with criteria to notify you if when documents with that criteria are modified (notify me when documents with a Status of Closed are modified)
    • You cannot specify the frequency of the email notifications like you could with Alerts.  With Alerts you could select a Summary option and choose which day of the week and time of day to receive Alerts.

     

    While I still like the Rules, especially the ease of maintenance, I'm hoping that they will incorporate some of the functionality they had with Alerts such as being able to set up a Rule at the document level without needing to create a workflow using Power Automate.

    Not to mention needing Edit permissions to create these rules.