Forum Discussion

Silver Contributor

Jul 20, 2016

Capabilities of Flow (as compared to SP Designer)

I think as I understand it Flow is the next evolution of SharePoint Designer Workflows? I have yet to have time to really dive into Flow, but in order to consider eventually upgrading solutions a...

Microsoft Flow

sharepoint

techchirag

MVP

Jul 21, 2016

In addition to Michael's response, Flow is a new workflow tool that enables business users (through browser or mobile app) to create automation to receive notifications, synchronize files, and get data between your apps and services (twitter, dropbox, salesforce as well as SharePoint, OneDrive For Business and more), be it on premise or in the cloud.

SharePoint Designer still has its space in the SharePoint ecosystem!

Michael Gauntlett

Brass Contributor

Jul 21, 2016

Does SPD really have a place moving forward? It's still supported, but it's not gaining capabilities for building workflows for O365 Group documents, Planner, or any other O365 service. It would be a shame if we need to use two different workflow engines in a single solution due to the limitations of each.

Brent Ellis
Silver Contributor
Jul 21, 2016
With the sheer number of solutions that have been built on it, Microsoft would rue the day if they ever "removed" SPD workflows from SharePoint without accounting for all of the legacy functionality (which is my fear).

But you are right, with no more evolving capabilities, it has led us to supplement with tools like Nintex Workflows.

I think it definitely has a place though, I am still building new solutions in Designer almost every day.
- Michael Gauntlett
  Brass Contributor
  Jul 21, 2016
  I agree it's not going away. SPD will be supported for years. I just assume that over time we'll be building more and more workflows via flow. I don't see a scenario of using flow for end user workflows and designer for IT developed workflows. We're just starting to enter a transition phase at the moment, but I assume the large percentage of workflows will be built in Flow in the not too distant future.