Be Prepared: A Change is Gonna Come for InfoPath and SharePoint Designer Users

As many larger organizations with active InfoPath forms and SharePoint Designer workflows scattered across various sites in their #SharePoint environments move deeper into #O365, they face a major dilemma.

There is no magic switch that "flips" these legacy forms and workflows into #PowerApps and #PowerAutomate solutions. ALL of these will have to be created manually as Infopath and SharePoint Designer are being sunsetted by Microsoft and will no longer be supported.

If legacy forms and workflows are configured with customizations like "if" statements or coding hacks, this can complicate matters further, especially if those knowledge resources in the organization who originally created and/or supported them are no longer there.

These businesses should seriously evaluate doing a system-wide audit of their SharePoint sites to assess how many antiquated form and workflow solutions are in place and find out what is connected to what. This is also a great opportunity to cleanup the SharePoint environment itself by deleting items and assets (following established retention policies) that no longer have business use or value.

A strategy of inaction and avoidance raises the serious possibilities of unknown problems down the line when those legacy solutions are finally out of support and something is broken on the client's side of the coin. Although it can be a tedious tech chore to rebuild older forms and workflows into more modernized solutions from scratch, it is best to tackle these issues proactively to avoid problems. A forward-thinking risk mitigation strategy for form and workflow updates can avert the embarrassment of potentially being caught off-guard by unwanted issues ironically caused by ecosystem upgrades designed to make the enterprise work more accurately and efficiently for Microsoft business customers.