A few days ago, Microsoft announced the retirement of SharePoint 2010 workflows for O365/SharePoint Online.
See the full post here: SharePoint 2010 workflow retirement and
MC217999, Plan For Change, Published date: 07/07/2020 – Retiring SharePoint 2010 Workflows
in your tenant admin message center.
Quick overview
- SharePoint 2010 workflows in Microsoft 365 (SharePoint Online) will be retired!
- Starting August 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2010 workflows will be turned off for newly created tenants.
- Starting November 1st, 2020, Microsoft will begin to remove the ability to run or create SharePoint 2010 workflows from existing tenants.
- Starting November 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2013 workflows will be turned off for any newly created tenants.
Microsoft will provide a PowerShell script to let customers to activate the SharePoint 2013-based workflow engine for tenant as needed. (aka.ms/sp-workflows-update )
Sharepoint OnPremise
- SharePoint 2013 workflows will remain supported, although deprecated.
- SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013-based workflows will continue to be supported for on-premises SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint 2019 Server platforms until 2026.
- Use the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT) to scan your onPrem server and review the report
What you need to do to prepare:
You will want to notify your users, workflow developers and site owners. Update your user training and prepare your help desk.
All exiting classic SharePoint Workflows will stop working after the deadline set by Microsoft. Actively used processes will be blocked and business will not continue the work.
While migrating classic workflows from onPrem to O365 was still possible until now, it will no longer work after August 1st as well.
Microsoft recommends customers move to Power Automate or other supported solutions, such as those from Preferred members of the Microsoft 365 Business Apps Partner Program.
For administrators:
To understand if your organization is using workflow 2010 or begin planning migration to Power Automate, we recommend that you run the SharePoint Modernization Scanner tool to scan your tenants for legacy workflows usage. The Workflow Report generated by the scanner tool can tell you the following:
- Distribution of legacy workflows across SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013 workflows
- Distribution of built-in and custom workflow usage
- Which sites and lists use workflows
- Power Automate upgradability score indicating how likely the detected actions can be upgraded to flows with Power Automate
Using the Workflow Report, along with site information, tenant administrators can work with their users to migrate these workflows with minimal interruption.
Admins can Review the guidance for migrating from classic workflows to Power Automate flows here: Migrate from classic workflows to Power Automate flows in SharePoint
Review the Power Automate resources as a solution to legacy workflows.
Nintex or other 3rd party solution workflows:
Due to the removal of the core engine, those solutions will also stop working but Nintex offers its own workflows SaaS solution Nintex Cloud Workflows
What’s next:
- Use the SharePoint Modernization Scanner tool to scan your tenants for legacy workflow usage.
- Review the guidance for migrating from classic workflows to Power Automate flows.
- Review the Power Automate resources as a solution to legacy workflows.
- Ask Support or Microsoft Consulting (MCS)
- Run SMAT assessment for onPremise SharePoint Server to scan for legacy workflows
Related information
- Support update for SharePoint 2010 workflows in Microsoft 365
- UserVoice reg. Designer 2010 Workflow Engine Retirement
- SharePoint Modernization Scanner
- What’s changed in SharePoint Designer 2013
- Discontinued features and modified functionality in Microsoft SharePoint 2013
- What’s deprecated or removed from SharePoint Server 2016
- What’s deprecated or removed from SharePoint Server 2019
SharePoint mysteries and more... 