Adopting a modern business process is crucial for boosting the productivity and today companies are using SharePoint collaboration tool to manage their work efficiently. Microsoft has contributed a lot in the development of the SharePoint platform and has come up with regular updates to enhance the features of the collaboration tool. Microsoft recently gave a notice that it will end its support this year for the “workflows” component of SharePoint 2010 Online and at the same time deprecate that component for SharePoint 2013 Online.
This end of support means that there will be no new patches from Microsoft, which includes the security patches and because of these IT professionals will need to replace or might have to upgrade the software before the deadlines so as to keep the SharePoint development system optimal.
The new announcement from Microsoft has declared that the deadlines for SharePoint workspaces apply to the organizations that use SharePoint Online Services which is hosted by Microsoft. The organizations using SharePoint Server products “on premises” or those using their own datacenters can continue to use the SharePoint workspaces until the year 2026.
Organizations that are using the workflows with SharePoint 2010 online now have fewer than 3 months in hand to react to the Microsoft’s end of support announcement, the deadlines on using SharePoint 2010 online workflows are:
The workflows that are competent will continue to work with SharePoint 2013 Online, but as announced by Microsoft, it will deprecate this component. By deprecation, it means that Microsoft is not planning to make any contributions or do further software development work on workflows, but security patches will keep on arriving and support it.
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The component is expected to be supported until the end of the product’s support, but it is not yet clear from Microsoft how long the workflows would be supported for SharePoint 2013 online. Microsoft is also planning to turn off the workflows for any new SharePoint Online tenancies from November, which means that business organizations can still use it. They will of course need a certain PowerShell script to activate the workflows.
Microsoft has stated that business organizations using SharePoint Online workflows can now switch to Power Automate and have similar functionalities. However, comments from readers has stated that the Power Automate is not up to speed in some areas like automated permissions management of SharePoint content. Since SharePoint Online users already have the Microsoft 365 licensing, they can easily use the Power Platform suite of solutions.
This decision of Microsoft to end support for workflows will give very little time to the IT professionals to react. Microsoft can actually end its Online Services product as per their modern lifecycle support policy, but it has extended the server’s life by about 6 months as mentioned in an April announcement.
Summary:
Recently Microsoft announced that it will end support for SharePoint 2010 Online workflows this year and deprecate the component for SharePoint 2013, which means the users will no more receive any new patches or upgrades.
