Workflow Migration Guide: SharePoint Workflows to Power Automate¶

Status: Authored 2026-04-30 Audience: SharePoint administrators, Power Platform developers, and workflow architects migrating SharePoint 2010/2013 Workflows and Nintex Workflows to Power Automate. Scope: Assessment with SMAT, workflow complexity tiers, Power Automate patterns for common workflows, and Nintex migration considerations.

1. Workflow migration overview¶

SharePoint 2010 Workflows and SharePoint 2013 Workflows are deprecated and not supported in SharePoint Online. All workflow functionality must be migrated to Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow). There is no automated migration tool -- each workflow requires manual assessment, redesign, and rebuild in Power Automate.

!!! danger "SharePoint workflows are fully deprecated" - SharePoint 2010 Workflows: Retired from SPO on November 1, 2020. Cannot run in SPO. - SharePoint 2013 Workflows: Retired from SPO on April 2, 2024. Cannot run in SPO. - SharePoint Designer Workflows: SharePoint Designer 2013 is the last version; no longer updated. Designer workflows use the 2010 or 2013 workflow engine. - There is no migration tool from SP Workflows to Power Automate. Each workflow must be manually redesigned.

2. Workflow inventory and assessment¶

SMAT workflow assessment¶

# Run SMAT with workflow focus
.\SMAT.exe -SiteURL https://sharepoint.contoso.com `
    -OutputFolder C:\SMAT-Results

# Key SMAT reports for workflows:
# - WorkflowAssociations2010.csv -- SP 2010 workflows
# - WorkflowAssociations2013.csv -- SP 2013 workflows
# - WorkflowRunning2010.csv -- Currently running 2010 instances
# - WorkflowRunning2013.csv -- Currently running 2013 instances

Manual workflow inventory¶

# Inventory all workflow associations across the farm
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell

$workflowInventory = @()

Get-SPSite -Limit All | ForEach-Object {
    $_.AllWebs | ForEach-Object {
        $web = $_

        # Site-level workflows
        $web.WorkflowAssociations | ForEach-Object {
            $workflowInventory += [PSCustomObject]@{
                SiteUrl           = $web.Site.Url
                WebUrl            = $web.Url
                Scope             = "Web"
                ListTitle         = "N/A"
                WorkflowName      = $_.Name
                AssociationId     = $_.Id
                IsEnabled         = $_.Enabled
                IsDeclarative     = $_.IsDeclarative
                Created           = $_.Created
                Modified          = $_.Modified
                RunningInstances  = $_.RunningInstances
                Platform          = "Unknown"
            }
        }

        # List-level workflows
        $web.Lists | ForEach-Object {
            $list = $_
            $_.WorkflowAssociations | ForEach-Object {
                $workflowInventory += [PSCustomObject]@{
                    SiteUrl           = $web.Site.Url
                    WebUrl            = $web.Url
                    Scope             = "List"
                    ListTitle         = $list.Title
                    WorkflowName      = $_.Name
                    AssociationId     = $_.Id
                    IsEnabled         = $_.Enabled
                    IsDeclarative     = $_.IsDeclarative
                    Created           = $_.Created
                    Modified          = $_.Modified
                    RunningInstances  = $_.RunningInstances
                    Platform          = "Unknown"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

$workflowInventory | Export-Csv -Path "C:\Migration\workflow-inventory.csv" -NoTypeInformation
Write-Host "Total workflows found: $($workflowInventory.Count)"

Workflow complexity classification¶

Tier	Complexity	Characteristics	Power Automate effort
Tier 1 -- Simple	Low	Approval, notification, status update	2-4 hours per workflow
Tier 2 -- Standard	Medium	Multi-step approval, conditional logic, email with dynamic content	1-2 days per workflow
Tier 3 -- Complex	High	Parallel approvals, loops, external web service calls, state machine	3-5 days per workflow
Tier 4 -- Custom	Very high	Custom code activities, complex business logic, multi-system integration	1-2 weeks per workflow