Replacing SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Power Automate
Microsoft have announced that users of SharePoint should be replacing SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Power Automate.
Webinar: Replacing SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Power Automate
We recently ran a 30-minute webinar to discuss the points of this article in response to the amount of our customers requesting information. You can watch this webinar below and read on for further information.
Webinar and Blog by: [email protected]
Microsoft Announcement
In August of 2020 Microsoft retired all SharePoint 2010 Designer Workflows. The announcement informed everyone that the 2010 workflows would be completely decommissioned and stop working at the beginning of November 2020.
This impacted a lot of organizations that relied on SharePoint 2010 Workflows for such things like email notifications, archiving processes, approval systems and many more automated business processes.
SharePoint 2013 Designer Workflows will continue to work. However, we would not recommend re-creating your SharePoint 2010 workflows as SharePoint 2013 workflows as these will inevitably be decommissioned in the coming years.
You can read the full announcement by clicking here.
Replacing SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Power Automate
If you are going to go to invest the time in re-developing your workflows Microsoft and Valto both recommend building them using Power Automate.
Power Automate that was formerly known as Flow, is an online product that is included in most Microsoft 365 licenses.
It provides an easy drag and drop type interface for creating automated business processes. It can integrate your favorite Microsoft 365 apps by issuing instant notifications, collecting data, moving files and more.
Not only does Power Automate integrate Microsoft 365 products it can also link to thousands of third-party products such as Twitter, Facebook, Mail Chimp and many more.
If you cannot find an out of the box connection to a third-party service or product, there is always the option to integrate via a custom API call from with Power Automate.
Replacing InfoPath Designer with Power Apps Forms
A lot of classic SharePoint solutions that used SharePoint Designer 2010 Workflows also used InfoPath Designer to customize the out of the box SharePoint form experience.
InfoPath allows users of SharePoint to input data via a customize form into a SharePoint list. Forms can be customized to enable changes to not only fonts, colors and branding.
The forms can also control the overall inputting process with by formatting the fields in the form into a specific order and layout. You could also hide fields dependent on values of other fields, along with other form customizations.
In 2014 Microsoft have published that InfoPath 2013 is the final version of the application that will be released by Microsoft. Although InfoPath is a deprecated product that you should be seeking to replace, Microsoft will continue to support the use of it within Office 365 and SharePoint 2016 until 2023.
If you are using InfoPath forms with SharePoint Online within Microsoft 365 you should be looking to replace this with Power Apps customized forms.
Power Apps can customize SharePoint list forms using the same designer interface that creates Canvas Power Apps.
Customizing you SharePoint list forms with Power Apps can provide all the same functionality as InfoPath Designer. However, Power Apps can provide a lot more advanced functionality such as embedding lists of other SharePoint data, buttons that can trigger Power Automate workflows, embedding Bing maps and more.
If you are considering using Power Apps, you should download our free Governing PowerApps white paper.
How to Find SharePoint 2010 Workflows and InfoPath Forms
If you are already aware of one automated process that has broken recently since the decommissioning of SharePoint 2010 workflows, there is a good chance there is many more automated processes that have been affected within your organization.
You should be compiling a list of all the SharePoint sites that are affected by this recent change. Whilst you are compiling this list it is worth including any SharePoint lists that are using InfoPath forms so you can plan to update these at the same time.
There is no easy way to detect which SharePoint sites are using SharePoint Designer 2010 workflows or InfoPath designer forms out of the box.
Microsoft have recently provided a tool that can help you determine SharePoint sites that are using both services.
You can download this tool and read more about how it works by clicking here.
Contact our Experts
Next Steps for Replacing SharePoint 2010 Workflows with Power Automate
We recommend that you read Microsoft’s guidance for migrating classic workflows to Power Automate. You can read this information by clicking here
If you need any support migrating your SharePoint 2010 Workflows to Power Automate or would like training on getting started with Power Automate please feel free to contact us.
Author
Dougie Wood
Solutions Architect
