SharePoint Alerts Are Going Away: What You Need to Know About Microsoft's Retirement Timeline

Microsoft has announced the retirement of SharePoint Alerts, a feature that has been helping users stay informed about changes to their SharePoint content for years. If your organization relies on SharePoint Alerts to track document updates, list changes, or other site activities, it's time to start planning your transition strategy. Here's everything you need to know about the timeline, impact, and alternatives.

Why Is Microsoft Retiring SharePoint Alerts?

Microsoft's decision to retire SharePoint Alerts is part of their broader digital transformation strategy. As the company states, they're focused on delivering "modern, optimized, secure solutions" and believe customers will be "better served by modern notification solutions based upon the Power Automate platform or SharePoint Rules."

This move reflects Microsoft's commitment to consolidating features around their Power Platform ecosystem, providing more powerful and flexible automation capabilities than the legacy SharePoint Alerts system could offer.

The Retirement Timeline: What Happens When

Microsoft has laid out a detailed phase-out schedule that gives organizations over a year to prepare and migrate:

July 2025: New Tenants Affected First

Starting in July 2025, "the creation of new SharePoint Alerts will be gradually turned off for newly onboarding tenants." If your organization is new to Microsoft 365, you won't be able to create new SharePoint Alerts.

September 2025: All Tenants Lose Creation Ability

From September 2025, "the creation of new SharePoint Alerts will be gradually turned off for all tenants." This is when most organizations will first notice the change, as users will no longer be able to set up new alerts.

October 2025: Expiration Feature Kicks In

This is where things get more serious. Starting in October 2025, "any SharePoint Alert will have a validity of 30 days starting from its first run, then it will expire." Users can manually extend alerts for another 30 days, but this becomes an ongoing maintenance task.

July 2026: Complete Retirement

The final deadline arrives in July 2026, when "Microsoft will remove the ability to use SharePoint Alerts; existing SharePoint Alerts cannot be extended anymore and will not work anymore."

What Users Will Experience

Microsoft has designed the retirement process to be as transparent as possible:

Alert Creation Blocking: Users trying to create new alerts "will not be able to save the Alert plus they'll see a banner to make them aware of the SharePoint Alerts feature is retiring."

Email Notifications: Starting in October 2025, SharePoint Alert emails will include banners explaining the retirement and showing when specific alerts will expire.

Self-Service Extensions: Users can proactively extend their existing alerts or re-enable expired ones, but only for 30-day periods.

Recommended Alternatives

Microsoft is steering users toward two main replacement solutions:

Power Automate (Recommended Primary Option)

Power Automate offers significantly more flexibility than traditional SharePoint Alerts. You can:

1. Create complex conditional logic for notifications
2. Send notifications to multiple channels (email, Teams, mobile apps)
3. Integrate with other Microsoft 365 services
4. Set up automated workflows beyond just notifications

SharePoint Rules

For simpler notification needs, SharePoint Rules provide a lighter-weight alternative that can handle basic alert scenarios without the complexity of full Power Automate workflows.

What You Should Do Right Now

1. Assess Your Current Usage -
   Microsoft recommends that customers "run the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool to scan their tenants for SharePoint Alerts usage." This tool generates a Power BI report showing all SharePoint Alerts in your tenant, organized by site collection and web.
   
   
2. Update Training Materials - 
   Microsoft advises organizations to "update your user training content and prepare your help desk to support your organization with this retirement." Your support team needs to be ready to help users transition to new solutions.
   
   
3. Start Planning Your Migration Strategy - 
   Consider these factors when planning your transition:
• Volume: How many alerts does your organization currently use?
• Complexity: Are your current alerts simple notifications or do they serve more complex business processes?
• User Technical Skills: Can your users handle Power Automate, or do they need simpler SharePoint Rules?
• Timeline: Can you migrate everything before October 2025, or will you need to manage the 30-day extension process?
  
  
4. Begin Testing Alternatives - 
   Start experimenting with Power Automate and SharePoint Rules now. Create parallel systems for critical alerts to ensure the alternatives work as expected before you lose the original alerts.

Migration Strategies by Use Case

Simple File/Folder Change Notifications: SharePoint Rules can easily replace basic "notify me when this document changes" alerts.

Complex Business Processes: If your alerts are part of larger workflows (like approval processes), Power Automate is your best bet. It can handle multi-step processes, conditional logic, and integrations with other systems.

High-Volume Environments: For organizations with hundreds of alerts, consider creating standardized Power Automate templates that users can easily customize for their needs.

User-Managed vs. IT-Managed: Decide whether individual users will create their own Power Automate flows or if IT will create centralized solutions.

Key Considerations for IT Leaders

Training Requirements: Power Automate has a learning curve. Budget time and resources for user training, especially for users who currently rely heavily on SharePoint Alerts.

Governance: Power Automate is more powerful than SharePoint Alerts, which means you'll need governance policies around who can create flows and what they can do.

Licensing: While basic Power Automate functionality is included with most Microsoft 365 plans, advanced features may require additional licensing.

Support Model: Determine whether your help desk can support Power Automate issues or if you need specialized training.

The Bigger Picture

This retirement is part of Microsoft's broader platform consolidation strategy. Rather than maintaining separate, limited-functionality features like SharePoint Alerts, Microsoft is investing in comprehensive platforms like Power Automate that can handle simple notifications while also scaling to complex automation scenarios.

This approach aligns with the modern workplace trend toward low-code/no-code solutions that empower users to create their own business processes without heavy IT involvement.

Timeline for Action

• By September 2025: Complete your assessment and have a migration plan in place. Start creating replacement flows for critical alerts.
• By October 2025: Have most of your alerts migrated to avoid the ongoing 30-day extension management overhead.
• By July 2026: All alerts must be fully migrated to alternative solutions.

Getting Help

Microsoft offers several support options for this transition:

• The Microsoft 365 Assessment tool for analyzing current usage
• Power Automate reference samples (coming soon)
• Support tickets for technical assistance
• Partner programs for organizations needing migration help

Final Thoughts

While losing SharePoint Alerts might initially seem disruptive, this retirement actually presents an opportunity to modernize your notification and automation strategies. Power Automate and SharePoint Rules offer significantly more capabilities than the retiring alerts system.

The key to success is starting your planning now. With over a year until final retirement, organizations that begin preparing today will have plenty of time to create better, more powerful notification systems than what they're replacing. 

Don't wait until the last minute. Use the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool, start experimenting with Power Automate, and begin training your users on the new tools. Your future self (and your users) will thank you for making this transition proactively rather than reactively.

SharePoint Online Update: Major Changes to Custom Scripting and Classic Publishing Sites Coming September 2025

If you're managing SharePoint Online environments, there's a significant change on the horizon that you need to prepare for. Microsoft has announced important updates to custom scripting capabilities and Classic Publishing site creation that will take effect on September 15, 2025. Here's everything you need to know about these changes and how to prepare your organization.

What's Changing?

Microsoft is implementing three major changes that will fundamentally alter how custom scripting and Classic Publishing sites work in SharePoint Online.

1. Custom Scripting Gets Disabled by Default
   
   Starting September 15, 2025, custom scripting will be automatically disabled for several SharePoint Online templates. This means the DenyAddAndCustomizePages setting will be set to $true by default for:
   
   
• BLANKINTERNETCONTAINER#0 (Classic Publishing Portal Site)
• CMSPUBLISHING#0 (Classic Publishing Site)
• BLANKINTERNET#0 (Classic Publishing Site Blank)
• CSPCONTAINER#0 (SharePoint Embedded Site)
  
  This change is driven by security considerations around ungoverned scripting, as Microsoft continues to tighten security controls across its platform.


2. No More New Classic Publishing Sites
   
   Perhaps the most significant change is that users will no longer be able to create new Classic Publishing site collections or activate publishing features in existing sites. This restriction applies to both user interface interactions and API calls.
   
   The following templates will no longer be available for new site creation:
   
   
• Publishing Portal Site
• Publishing Site
• Publishing Site Blank
• Enterprise Wiki
• Enterprise Search Center
• Site Directory
• News Home Site
• Product Catalog
• Report Center
• Topic Area Template
  
  Important note: If you already have Classic Publishing sites, don't panic. Existing sites remain completely unaffected and can continue normal operations, including creating subsites.
  
  
3. Improved Property Bag Management
   
   There's some good news in these updates too. Microsoft has introduced a new feature that allows users to manage site property bag values without needing to enable custom scripting. The new

    AllowWebPropertyBagUpdateWhenDenyAddAndCustomizePagesIsEnabled  
   

   setting works at both tenant and site levels, making property bag management much more straightforward.

How This Impacts Your Organization

These changes will have different effects depending on how your organization currently uses SharePoint:

For Custom Scripting Users: 

When custom scripting is disabled, several features become unavailable:

1. Script editor web parts stop working
2. Custom master pages and page layouts can't be created or modified
3. Various other customization features are blocked

For SharePoint Administrators: 

You'll lose the ability to create new Classic Publishing site collections or enable publishing features at the site collection level through standard methods.

For End Users: 

The impact will primarily affect those who rely on custom scripts and Classic Publishing features for their daily work.

What You Need to Do Right Now

Microsoft recommends taking several proactive steps to prepare for these changes:

1. Communicate with Your Users
   Start informing owners of Classic Publishing sites about these upcoming changes immediately. This gives them time to plan and potentially migrate to Modern SharePoint sites, which Microsoft strongly recommends.
   
   
2. Consider Migration to Modern Sites
   Microsoft provides comprehensive guidance for modernizing SharePoint environments. Modern sites offer better performance, security, and user experience compared to Classic Publishing sites. Now is an excellent time to evaluate your current sites and plan migrations where appropriate.
   
   
3. Understand Your Temporary Options
   Microsoft has provided several PowerShell commands that offer temporary relief if you need more time:
   
   Delay enforcement for your entire tenant until March 15, 2026:
   

    Set-SPOTenant -DelayDenyAddAndCustomizePagesEnforcementOnClassicPublishingSites $true  

   Allow temporary custom scripting for a specific site (24-hour duration):
   

    Set-SPOSite <SiteURL> -DenyAddAndCustomizePages $false  

   Allow creation of new Classic Publishing sites (if absolutely necessary):
   

    Set-SPOTenant -AllowClassicPublishingSiteCreation $true  

   
   
4. Update Your Tools
   Make sure you're running the latest SharePoint Online Management Shell (version 16.0.26211.12010 or higher) to use these new commands.

The Bigger Picture

These changes are part of Microsoft's broader strategy to modernize SharePoint Online and enhance security. Classic Publishing sites were built for an earlier era of web development, and Modern SharePoint sites offer significant advantages:

1. Better mobile responsiveness
2. Improved performance and loading times
3. Enhanced security features
4. Better integration with Microsoft 365 services
5. More intuitive user interfaces

Planning Your Response

Here's a practical approach to handling these changes:

Short-term (Before September 2025):

1. Audit your current Classic Publishing sites
2. Identify which sites truly need custom scripting
3. Plan communications to affected users
4. Test Modern site alternatives for critical functionality

Medium-term (September 2025 - March 2026):

1. Use the temporary opt-out period to complete migrations
2. Train users on Modern SharePoint features
3. Update any automated processes that create Classic Publishing sites

Long-term (After March 2026):

1. Complete migration to Modern sites where possible
2. Maintain only essential Classic Publishing sites with proper governance
3. Regularly review and optimize your SharePoint environment

Final Thoughts

While these changes might seem disruptive, they represent Microsoft's commitment to providing a more secure and modern collaboration platform. The temporary opt-out options give organizations breathing room to plan and execute transitions thoughtfully.

The key is to start planning now rather than waiting until September. Use this time to evaluate your current SharePoint usage, communicate with stakeholders, and develop a migration strategy that works for your organization.

Remember, existing Classic Publishing sites will continue to work normally, so there's no immediate crisis. However, proactive planning will help ensure a smooth transition and might even lead to discovering better ways to accomplish your current tasks using Modern SharePoint features.