SharePoint2013 Archives - Daniel Glenn

SharePoint Workflows are Dead (Almost)

Daniel — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 04:34:22 +0000

The end of support for “SharePoint 2010 workflows” in Microsoft 365 will be November 1st, 2020. The title of the blog post, Support update for SharePoint 2010 workflows in Microsoft 365, doesn't make it clear, but we are seeing the beginning of the end for SharePoint workflows in SharePoint Online. This is truly the end of SharePoint workflow. End of SharePoint Workflow It isn't a surprise that Microsoft is moving to not support native workflows in SharePoint. At Microsoft's Ignite conference in 2016, Microsoft announced that support for SharePoint Designer workflows (and InfoPath forms) in SharePoint Server (on-premises) would in time not be supported. The end of support date was stated to be until 2026. However, the key to those announcements and subsequent blog posts was that they were talking about the on-premises versions of SharePoint Server. There has never been a promise to support older versions of workflows in SharePoint Online for that period of time. There also has never been a timeline released when SharePoint workflows would stop being supported in SharePoint Online – until now. At time of publication, the older blog posts announcing the on-premises changes could not be located. What was assumed at the time, though, was that Microsoft would give ample amount of notice when existing workflows would be removed from SharePoint Online. SharePoint 2010 Workflows have been deprecated If you received this warning when you looked at your workflow page, then your tenant has already been affected. So what is actually being changed? Read on. What Exactly is Being Removed There is some confusion because the specific workflow engine being removed is being called “SharePoint 2010”. However, this isn't a signal of the version of SharePoint itself, but the version of the workflow engine. There are two different categories of workflows that are included in the retirement: 1) out of the box workflows that come with SharePoint and 2) workflows created using SharePoint Designer. Out of the Box Workflows There are several out of the box (OOTB) workflows that have been available to configure in document libraries and lists for many past versions of SharePoint. OOTB workflows are easily created and maintained within the SharePoint user interface (UI). These workflows include Approval, Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures, Disposition Approval, and Three-state. These workflows are used widely by power users, developers, and site users. They are configured easily in the UI and because they are OOTB, don't usually fail because of a step that has been configured incorrectly. 2010 Workflows Created with SharePoint Designer The other category of workflows that will be disabled are those created with SharePoint Designer (SPD). SPD is a free application that has been used by power users, administrators, and developers around the world to edit SharePoint pages, modify settings, and create powerful workflows. Both SharePoint Designer 2010 and SharePoint Designer 2013 versions can create 2010 workflows – the workflow author chooses what engine when they first create the workflow. When Will SharePoint Workflows be Disabled? As reported in the blog announcement, there are several dates to keep in mind. August 1st, 2020 – after August 1st, any new Microsoft 365 tenants will have 2010 workflows disabled. November 1st, 2020 – on November 1st, Microsoft will begin disabling all 2010 workflows on all sites. Also in November 2020, 2013 workflows will be disabled by default for any newly created Microsoft 365 tenants. Are 2013 Workflows Being Removed? If this is the end of SharePoint workflow, are 2013 workflows being removed too? Starting in November 2020, Microsoft will disable 2013 workflows by default for any newly created tenants. However, administrators will be able to turn it back on via PowerShell. Microsoft is not giving a timeframe for when 2013 workflows will be removed just like 2010 workflows. They will be ‘deprecated' in November 2020, which is the first step in saying they will be removed in the future. It is my opinion that if the process of 2010 workflows goes smoothly, then the 2013 workflows will not be far behind. So what do I mean by ‘smoothly'? My first requirement for this to be ‘smooth' is if customers don't complain too much. Some customers say less than 4 months notice is far too little time. This also comes during a global pandemic that has organization budgets stretched thin. There is a UserVoice created with over 1,000 votes and if you feel the notice of change is too short, you can vote there. My second requirement for this to be ‘smooth' is if removing the workflows is successfully performed and happens without causing issues for sites. What Do We Do Now? A good resource to help you get started in the process is Microsoft's support article SharePoint 2010 workflow retirement. The page lists how to identify your workflows, and says you should recreate the workflows in Power Automate. The first step will be to identify the workflows you have running on your sites using the SharePoint modernization scanner. Second, organizations need to identify which of the workflows in their environment are being used and should be recreated in Power Automate. This second step might take some time if you have been using SharePoint for many business processes in your environment. The third step is to then recreate the workflows in Power Automate. There are five points to go into this process. Working with the owners to recreate the workflow Incorporating any process improvements Identifying gaps in Power Automate functionality that might need more complex processes Testing Running a change management program to roll out the new workflows That could be a tremendous amount of work. You need to know if you can make progress during the 3.5 months you have before your workflows are disabled. Need Help? If you find that you need some help with any of the steps above to meet the deadline, make sure you contact me! Fill-out my contact form and let me help.

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Enable Alerts for SharePoint 2019, 2016, 2013

Daniel — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 15:00:35 +0000

Allowing users to set alerts on SharePoint lists and libraries is the easiest way to keep users informed with what is going on within your intranet and team (collaboration) sites. This functionality has been a part of SharePoint for many versions and is an easy feature for users to take advantage of. That is, IF you have all the settings correct. Your first sign that alerts are not setup for use is when looking at the library (or list) tab in the ribbon, and you don't see the Alert me button in the Share & Track section. There are two settings you need to check: first you need to make sure that alerts set on for the web application. Go to the web application list in Central Administration (/_admin/WebApplicationList.aspx) and then click the General Settings ‘gears' button in the Web Applications ribbon. Then select General Settings in the drop-down menu. As shown in the image above, make sure in the Alerts section, the Alerts on this server are is set to On. The second setting you need to have configured is the outgoing e-mail settings. From the System Settings page in Central Administration, click the Configure outgoing e-mail settings link under the E-Mail and Text Messages (SMS) section. On the Outgoing E-Mail Settings page, enter the correct outbound SMTP server, From address, and the rest of the information on the form. If you do not specify a SMTP server port, port 25 will be used. Once you have ensured the alerts feature is turned on and you have correctly configured the outgoing e-mail settings, the Alert me button will show up after refreshing the page. It has been my experience that you have to wait several minutes for the Alert me button to show after performing the steps above. You can also enable SharePoint alerts using PowerShell. To enable SharePoint alerts via PowerShell, use the following commands – make sure you replace – insert the full URL of the web app – with your correct URL (e.g. https://intranet.mycompany.com ): [code language=”powershell”] $webapp=get-spwebapplication "insert the full URL of the web app" $webapp.alertsenabled = $true $webapp.update() [/code]

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SharePoint 2010 Site Experience With SharePoint 2016

Daniel — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 22:49:21 +0000

While testing an upgrade today, I was reminded of a requirement when upgrading to SharePoint 2016 using the database attach method – you must upgrade all site collections to the SharePoint 2013 experience before you attempt to attach the database to a SharePoint 2016 farm. My test today is using a SharePoint 2010 content database and attempting an upgrade to SharePoint 2016. I first performed a database attach upgrade with a SharePoint 2013 farm, then performed the Test-SPContentDatabase PowerShell command on the database from my SharePoint 2016 farm. It is important to notice that the LegacySiteDetected error shown above is an UpgradeBlocking error, meaning the upgrade will fail if you proceed. Following the direction listed in the Remedy section will fix the issue, but it does require working in the SharePoint 2013 farm to upgrade the site's experience to 2013. More information on how to perform that operation can be found here: Expand Upgrade a site collection to SharePoint 2013 [TechNet]

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SharePoint 2010 Workflows on a SharePoint 2016 Farm

Daniel — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:09:53 +0000

[This is a quick post – it will be updated with more information soon] During a recent client meeting, I was asked if SharePoint 2010 version workflows, developed on a SharePoint Server 2013 farm, will continue to work if the server farm is upgraded to 2016. SharePoint Server 2016 has not been released at the time of this writing, but we do have the Release Candidate to test with, so I went about testing. On a SharePoint Server 2013 farm (version 15.0.4719.1002, which is SP1 with May 2015 CU) I created a SharePoint 2010 version workflow and associated it with a document library. I took a SQL backup of the content database and restored it as a database named Site_SP13_to_SP16RC. On the SharePoint Server 2016 Release Candidate (RC) machine, I ran the Test-SPContentDatabase PowerShell cmdlet to check the database for any issues that might be encountered during the upgrade. The cmdlet ended without even a peep – which is a good sign. So, I performed the upgrade and it ran without error. I loaded the newly upgraded site and was greeted by an old friend… …and he (Working on it) stayed a while. It took several minutes for my simple team site to become available. The website loaded and it was ‘wonderful' ha! (see site name). The workflow I created on the SharePoint 2013 farm is configured to kickoff when the document is modified or a new document is added. So, I simply changed the title of the Test document that was already in the library. The workflow successfully started and did assign a task as it should. However, I noticed something on the workflows screen for the document – within the Completed Workflows section, the history of the workflow when it ran on the 2013 farm was listed. This isn't a huge surprise, but it is really nice to see that the history is there after upgrading! In summary, a SharePoint 2010 workflow (a very simple one in this case) created on a SharePoint Server 2013 site, will continue to work when upgraded to a SharePoint 2016 RC farm via database attach.

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Building Business Intelligence Dashboards with SharePoint Data – December 1st 2015

Daniel — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:51:21 +0000

I will be co-presenting at the Nashville Business Intelligence User Group meeting this month. We will be walking attendees through creating dashboards using Power BI and I will be focusing on using SharePoint data. I will show how to use Excel to create dashboards within SharePoint web part pages – first with an export of a SharePoint list and then an import of a SharePoint list into Excel. We will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of each method. I will then show linking to the same SharePoint list data using the Power BI Desktop application and then publishing it to Power BI. [UPDATE] The meeting went really well – Tammy Clark started off showing how easily Power BI could connect to Facebook data. I went second and used a SharePoint list I created with Helpdesk data to create dashboards using Excel and SharePoint web part pages. I then moved onto Power BI and ended with showing the cool iOS Power BI app (although it took some time to get it to project from my phone onto the screen). Dan Evans then made a couple of announcements about Cortana and Power BI integration. Kerry Tyler finished off the night rocking our Power BI world with a demo that had us saying “wow!” 🙂 We finished the night at a new restaurant around the corner called Tupelo – fried green tomatoes, pork egg rolls (they were fantastic!!), and chicken and biscuits were enjoyed by all!

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SharePoint Users Group – December 8th 2015

Daniel — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 20:00:27 +0000

This coming December 8th I will be presenting to the Nashville SharePoint Users Group (nashvillesug.com) with the topic “Building SharePoint Solutions with Out of the Box Features and No Code”. I will highlight the features within SharePoint that I use often to create beneficial solutions for companies around the country. With heavy emphasis on not using any code, I will demo solutions built using a SharePoint Online site. [UPDATE] Last night's meeting was a lot of fun – we have a great turnout and I know I had a good time hanging out with my Nashville SharePoint friends. We started off by talking about the Microsoft office move – the offices are moving to closer to downtown Nashville and will disrupt our meetings some next year. However, we already have plans for at least half of the time we will be without a meeting home, so stay tuned! I then talked about the next technology event in Nashville – SQL Saturday Nashville 2016, which is on January 16th, 2016. It will be a great learning experience and I will be giving a spotlight session (learn more in my blog post about the event). The group was interactive and we had a great conversation around no-code solutions. @DanielGlenn schooling us on views at @NashvilleSUG. NO MORE FOLDERS IN SP LIBRARIES! pic.twitter.com/cdFpT30DxA — Preston Williams (@PrestonWilli82) December 9, 2015 We ended the night with a lot of great giveaways. Thank you to everyone who attended my session!

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SQL User Group – November 20th 2015

Daniel — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 23:45:00 +0000

[UPDATE] Thank you to everyone who attended the meeting. I hope you enjoyed your time and learned something! The slides can be found here: Nashville SQL Server User Group 11/20/2015 Congrats to Nick for winning the swag! @DanielGlenn @nashsql SQL config for Sharepoint. pic.twitter.com/6vKa2b48gs — Nick Koch (@KochaKola) November 20, 2015 ———————————————————————————————————————- I am honored to be asked to speak at the November 20th Nashville SQL Server User Group. The meeting starts at 12 noon and I will be presenting “Tuning SQL Server for SharePoint”. I will covering the best practices for SQL Server when it is used for SharePoint as well as doing a live SharePoint Server 2016 Technical Preview install. More information can be found on the SQL Server User Group website (nashville.sqlpass.org), including the registration link! I will have the recap and slide deck attached to this post after the meeting.

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