Migrating from SharePoint Designer Workflows to Flow
SharePoint Designer is part of the SharePoint family, and it has been around since 2010. It lets you modify SharePoint sites, workflows, and webpages. Flow is a cloud-based software that lets you automate tasks and workflows across many applications and services.
We’ve already covered the main differences between SharePoint Designer Workflows and Microsoft Flow, and which one you should use for certain cases. But since Microsoft has discontinued SharePoint Designer and fully aims to make Flow its replacement for workflows, you’re bound to migrate them from Designer sooner or later. So today, we’ll take a look at how you can do so!
Should I begin migrating if Flow doesn’t have all I need?
Yes! Not only is Flow going to eventually replace SharePoint Designer Workflow, it also works flawlessly in conjunction with Office 365 and Azure Services. So, if you haven’t already, start migrating what you can, and leave SharePoint Designer Workflows only for what you absolutely can’t move yet.
And remember—if there’s something you think Flow is missing, you can (and should!) submit your idea to Microsoft. Since Flow is still growing, they’re actively looking for and acting on suggestions.
Basics
Most actions will have similar, or the same names in Flow and SharePoint Designer as well. However, you should still be careful! There isn’t a standard approach for migrations or a 1:1 method, a good starting point is to consider your Conditions, Actions, and Loops in SharePoint Designer. These can easily be replaced with Microsoft Flow Equivalents.
SharePoint Designer had its triggers tied to something directly happening to a list item, a document, or a given date. Flow, on the other hand, can also be triggered by other applications—so for instance, when you post a Tweet from your corporate account, Flow can trigger certain actions, such as sharing that Tweet directly to the Company’s Facebook page (and vice-versa).
Triggers
They’re the foundation of any Flow, and serve as the action that initiates the entire workflow, and like we said above it can be anything from a post, to a certain date, to a certain user. In SharePoint Designer, you’d use the “on created” event. With Flow, all you have to do is Create a new trigger, and select your desired options.
There are downsides to the simplicity of Flow and its triggers—for instance, it’s a pain to change them, since the triggers aren’t explicitly attached to the flow, versus SharePoint Flow, where you could just check and uncheck different startup options.
Conditions, Actions, and Loops
Conditions are simple, and is basically an “If-then” situation. SharePoint Designer has a couple more options than Flow, such as empty, not empty, matches regular expression, and equals (ignoring case). The Empty and Not Empty condition can be bypassed by using the function Null, but if you absolutely need to match regular expression and ignore case during an equals check, there’s no present way to do it with Flow.
Every other condition, however, you can migrate with Add a Condition in Flow. Here’s Microsoft’s page to help you get started!
Now, for Actions. Some are still unavailable (such as Starting a List Workflow), but there are a lot you can already migrate to Flow. Adding comments, time to a date, Calling Http Services, calculations, counting and getting items from the dictionary, sending e-mails… We could keep going, but suffice to say, it’s an extensive list, and Custom Actions are covered as well. As with Triggers and Conditions, all you have to do is Create Action!
Migrate SharePoint 2010 Workflow to Flow
Per Microsoft, SharePoint 2010 workflows will be fully retired and removed from SharePoint Online on November 1, 2020. If you know you use SharePoint 2020 workflows, it is recommended you start upgrading and migrate from Sharepoint to Microsoft Flow (Power Automate) now.
If you are not sure if your company is using SharePoint 2010 workflows, eSoftware Associates can scan your SharePoint Online environment for you. This will find all SharePoint 2010 workflows and where they are used. We can create an action plan to assess the overall complexity of the workflows, if they are indeed in use and how to convert and migrate SharePoint 2010 workflows to Microsoft Flow using our comparison matrix, found here.
Migrating SharePoint 2010 workflows to Flow (Power Automate) can be complicated if you are not familiar with the existing workflows. It is also imperative to have a way to properly test new workflows without “feeling like” you are triggering business critical actions and events. eSoftware can assist with setting up a proper test environment to help with your SharePoint 2010 workflow conversion.
Also, if you are planning on migrating from SharePoint On Premise to SharePoint Online, we recommend that you plan on converting SharePoint 2010 Workflows to Power Automate as well. You may even want to consider converting SharePoint 2010 Workflows to Power Automate since we anticipate Microsoft will be retiring those workflows in the future.
Learn more about How to Convert SharePoint workflows to Microsoft Flow.
Need help? Our team can migrate your workflows with ease.