Postope Designer 2010 Workflow Engine Retirement
On 6th July 2020, it was suddenly announced that SharePoint 2010 workflow engine is going to stop working by November 2020.
For at least a few of my clients it will represent a catastrophe.
Our suggestion is to push back the retirement date to a more reasonable date. For example, match if with SharePoint Designer 2013 support lifecycle or with InfoPath support lifecycle.
Large organizations depend on clear sunsetting timelines. Announcement that leaves them only four months to react is completely unrealistic. Organizations need to plan resources, budget, hire SharePoint SME’s and involve business owners that rely on these workflows and much more.
Reasons for postponement:
- The clients were not properly warned about the Workflows retirement.
- There are SPO tenants with thousands SharePoint 2010 Workflows running with no direct path of quick replacement.
- Not all Workflow 2010 can be replaced with Workflow 2013 engine or Power Automate because of features differences.
- Many Clients do not have enough time and resources to replace the existing workflows.
- Pandemic is still not over and this announcement feels very out of place.
Denis Molodtsov
shared this idea
AdminSharePoint UserVoice Admin
(SharePoint UserVoice Admin, Microsoft SharePoint)
responded
We’ve been working one on one with customers deeply impacted by this change and encourage people to reach out to support if they have special circumstances. However, we wanted to provide clarity that our policy will not be changing and our previously communicated timelines will continue. In that regard, we will be retiring 2010 Workflows on November 1st, 2020 in SharePoint Online. After November 1st, 2020, while existing 2010 workflows will stop to run, users can still open and view their workflows in SharePoint Designer. Please visit the following link to get the latest updates about the 2010 Workflows retirement: https://aka.ms/sp-workflows-support.
181 comments
Comments are closed-
Sudhir Kesharwani
commented
Seriously Microsoft , 2020 could not be worse then this. We already have enough bad news to deal with. We just finished big migration project and fixed thousands of workflows. Now we can not go back to client and tell them that we need to upgrade those worfklows...essentially rebuild in the tool which does not support half of the features of SP2010 workflows. Microsoft should take responsibility for fixing all workflows on the tenant...since they are the one having more time and resources
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Anonymous
commented
The sudden time line to sunset Workflow 2010 is crazy!
We have apps that have 10 forms, and mix high number of Workflows 2013 with few Workflows 2010. Even now PowerApps and PowerAutomate in gov tenant are clumsy to work with. -
ONZ Dev
commented
Dear Mr McNulty and colleagues, the words that are being expressed in the comments section here are not just a symbol of user resistance to change. This is a real and immediate risk to thousands of organisations which you are there to serve - your customers. Please do the right things, trust cannot easily be re-gained once lost, and recent actions are forcing us to reconsider this platform. Thanks.
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Anonymous
commented
Did someone fat finger the date? Was it supposed to be November 2022?
If it was indeed 2020, then this is very bad strategy and put Microsoft in a bad spot. It shows that they don't care about their customers and are free to make decisions which works best for them.... it is all about them not us. No wonder why the stock is rallying... they are forcing companies to buy their products or they will cut off access without giving enough notice to plan and execute.
And what happened to the promise "100 votes in 90 days"... see you guys can't even find time to respond to this thread after the announcement and you expect us to rewrite 1000's of workflows in 4 months.
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Paul Morrison
commented
Please do not retire this feature. The impact would be huge to our organization and we need this still in our environment. I am counting on your PROMISE "100 votes in 90 days" and we are now well over 900!! Thanks !
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Shankar Raghuraman
commented
Please postpone as it would be huge impact for our Organisation
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Adrian Whelton
commented
please postpone as this will have a huge impact on our company environment
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RayG
commented
please postpone, as this will be a huge impact on our company environment
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Anonymous
commented
Please postpone. 4 months notice does not give enough time to convert current apps using Sharepoint Designer. We are in the process of converting but still not enough time.
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Adam Duggan
commented
The need to retire 2010 workflows is understandable, but the timing provided in this plan from Microsoft is not! Our business relies on SP2010 workflows to function, and a project to replace them will never be able to complete in this short timeframe. This is the type of change that requires at least a year (ideally two!) to plan for and implement. A four month warning is both ridiculous and honestly insulting for an enterprise-grade solution like SharePoint/Office 365. I understand that the cloud moves quickly, and in most cases our company has appreciated that rapid evolution in SharePoint, but complete retirement of a fundamental automation component is a very different impact than a user interface change. Turn if off in the new tenants, but please give the active users a reasonable business timeline to accommodate these changes.
Thank you for your consideration.
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Latif A
commented
Please postpone, this another reason that shows that Microsoft does not care
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Anonymous
commented
please postpone this as it 's effecting the company
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Anonymous
commented
Once again, Microsoft shows it has no clue how the real world works. Even worse, their “MVPs” who allegedly consult with clients were making some really ridiculous, tone deaf, and completely unrealistic comments regarding this announcement. As an actual consultant who deals with real, live customers (and not Contoso, Inc demos all day), this decision is awful on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start. The main thing, however, is that we’re in a severe recession and many companies are in deep financial trouble. Many smaller companies use SharePoint workflows because they’re powerful and economical. And now, you’re giving them 3 months to come up with a budget, funds, and resources to remediate all those workflows in Power Automate? Unbelievable. I’ve already had clients burned by your connector licensing stupidity, and now this - it’s time for Microsoft to hire people who have actually worked in the real world and know how things operate.
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Mario Longhi
commented
Power Automate does not offer like for like replacement of functionality.
We'd also have to work with the users to get these workflows changed and there is no lead time for it. -
Denis
commented
Right Microsoft, time to put your promises in action. Your rules are "If your idea receives over 100 votes in 90 days, we will respond."
This has had 945 votes in 8 days, so clearly by your own rules, you need to respond.
1. Power Automate is and remains NO viable replacement for SharePoint 2010 workflows, not now, and still not according to any published roadmaps for functional parity.
2. You have provided woefully inadequate advance notice, during extraordinary global circumstances, of the termination of functionality that is critical to many organisations.
Hello? Are you listening to us?
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Anonymous
commented
While I understand the need to continue innovate new capabilities and retire old is part of the IT world we all work in each day. I am disappointed in the lack of providing automation in either migrating to SharePoint 2013 Workflows or Power Automate is clear miss by Microsoft.
Your customer base is working in unprecedented times with dealing with various urgent needs to address Covid19 requests. This clearly is poorly timed announcement and would hope Microsoft would reconsider the timing of this announcement and provide tools to make the lift easier.
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Anonymous
commented
Microsoft shows total ignorance for their customers and for developer society that build solutions around Microsoft 365.
Lesson learned from this case:
- vendor lock-in is always a huge risk
- as a developer, stay away from building solutions for Microsoft solutions, you cannot build serious business on Microsoft products because sooner or later this product will be retired
I'm also shocked by two facts:
- Microsoft gives only a few months to migrate very complex solutions based on SharePoint 2010 workflows that were built during many years
- SharePoint workflows, core SharePoint technology will be totally retired. There are thousands of SharePoint add-in in the Office Store that use SharePoint workflows and now what? Microsoft will display "This app is not supported on your server" for 70-80% of SharePoint add-ins in the Store?
Now Microsoft makes many enhancements into MS Teams, I'm almost sure that SharePoint will be replaced by MS Teams and Power Automate sooner or later. Then Microsoft will give us a few months to migrate to Teams...
To summary: stay away from Microsoft 365 and find a serious partner, probably Google with they cloud solutions will be better. -
Lionel
commented
Please extent the 2010 workflows as this has been a surprise with how fast it will be going away and we need more time to get everything converted over. Thanks
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Thomas Duff
commented
I do not see how this time frame works for any organization who has any number of SPD 2010.
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Michael Propst
commented
Would love to see Microsoft provide a Power Automate Template that would mimic the functionality of the 2010 OOB Approval Workflow
