In 2007, Microsoft introduced SharePoint Designer for the first time, the tool dedicated to creating SharePoint sites, once again changing the landscape of corporate intranet design. To date, this software, retired way back in 2017, has been replaced by the SharePoint Online Modern Experience, launched in the same year that official support for Designer was discontinued. In this article, we will talk about what SharePoint Designer is, how it works and what replaced it after its deprecation, inheriting and expanding its functionality.
SharePoint Designer (born under the name “Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer”) was, until 2016, an application developed and managed by Microsoft whose main use was aimed at creating and customizing SharePoint websites.
The software was introduced by Microsoft for the first time in 2007 and released in different versions, parallel to the main versions of SharePoint (2007, 2010, 2013) as a modern successor to Microsoft FrontPage, another development tool for web pages created way back in 1997 by the Redmond house and retired from the same in 2003.
Over time, Microsoft began to push for more modern and integrated tools for developing and customizing SharePoint, such as PowerApps and Microsoft Flow (now Power Automate) and announced that SharePoint Designer 2013 would be the last version released. Mainstream support for this product officially ended in April 2017, with support then extended to April 2026.
SharePoint Designer was an extremely powerful tool in the years of its peak and allowed users to design, build and customize SharePoint-based sites and applications without the need for extensive knowledge in the field of programming, even though it was still far from Microsoft's “Low-code/no-code” policy that is today one of the reasons why its products are particularly appreciated and used in every type of company and at every level of expertise.
As its name suggests, SharePoint Designer was a design program closely linked to SharePoint, the Microsoft collaboration platform developed to create intelligent corporate sites.
SharePoint is still used (in particular in its “Online” version, completely cloud-based) by companies of all sizes in the world to build team sites ideal for managing projects and initiatives and communication sites, such as the intranet and the extranet, where you can collaborate on documents stored in the Microsoft cloud or publish internal communications, employee services, training content and much more.
SharePoint Designer was part of the design of SharePoint-based intranets with its functionalities for customizing the sites created with the platform, from the layout to the individual components of which they were made.
Thanks to its design and editing capabilities, SharePoint Designer allowed its users for the first time to transform SharePoint sites from simple document archives to dynamic portals that favor and make internal business processes more immediate.
To do this, the application offered a single space from which it was possible to modify the elements that made up sites and related pages and also work on the relationships that linked these elements, so as to be able to design the user's navigation within the site down to the smallest detail.
With the automated workflows that could be created with Designer, it was possible to link to the actions that users perform on a SharePoint site in a concatenation of events aimed at completing repetitive activities or those “bureaucratic” operations that every day steal time, energy and space from other types of operations more useful for achieving business objectives.
In particular, the workflows that you can build with Designer are used to automate two types of processes:
If you are not familiar with the workflows of platforms such as Power Automate, just know that each workflow is based on certain structural elements, such as Actions, Conditions, Phases, Steps and Loops.
Le actions they trivially correspond to what is done by the flow, when an event occurs and its relative Conditions. For example, you could set as a Condition to add a particular type of file to a SharePoint list and as an Action to send a request for approval to a specific group of users.
At that point, the flow starts automatically to carry out step by step all the Actions that have been assigned to it, possibly divided into Phases and Step subsequent. Finally, the term”Loop“refers to the possibility of making specific activities of the created workflow repetitive.
Another important function of SharePoint Designer was to provide tools for developers to customize and apply elements of their organization's branding.
In fact, the program made it possible to incorporate elements such as logos, palettes, headers and corporate footers into each page of their SharePoint sites, providing three main tools, which bring together all the layout design commands.
Let's see them below:
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Over time, SharePoint Designer has gradually been replaced by a series of tools and platforms within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, offering more modern and flexible functionality for creating, customizing, and managing SharePoint solutions.
With the exception of the integration in more modern forms of Designer functionality into subsequent versions of SharePoint (which we will discuss in a separate section), we are now going to focus on an overview of all the applications of the Microsoft 365 environment that have inherited part of the Designer functionality, going to see in more detail what functionality of each one has been taken up by Designer and how they have been expanded since their first appearance in the Microsoft development software.
Let's start our overview with the applications of the Power Platform suite, which includes Power Apps for the development of customized apps, Power Automate for process automation and Power BI for data analysis and the creation of dynamic reports.
Like SharePoint Designer, Power Automate (formerly known as Microsoft Flow) allows users to create automated workflows. The application offers an intuitive and functional visual interface for building flows that can interact with SharePoint and many other applications in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Users can create flows that are triggered in response to specific events, such as creating or modifying items in a SharePoint list, and define a series of actions that occur in response to these triggers.
Power Automate offers many predefined templates to be implemented quickly and efficiently for the management of common SharePoint workflows, facilitating automation without the need to write additional code for insertion.
SharePoint Designer allowed the creation of customized forms and Power Apps inherits this Designer functionality, providing a visual platform for designing mobile and web applications and giving users the ability to create customized applications to enter and modify application data that integrate with SharePoint lists and libraries without writing code.
SharePoint Designer allowed the creation of customized visualizations for data, a feature inherited from Power BI with which users can now very easily create interactive dashboards and detailed reports that integrate directly with SharePoint data. In addition, Power BI can automatically extract data from SharePoint lists and view it intuitively, greatly facilitating the analysis of business data.
Similar to custom forms that can be created with SharePoint Designer, Microsoft Forms allows you to collect data from users through online forms but in a faster and more efficient way than in the past.
Users can create forms for surveys, quizzes, and feedback that can be integrated with SharePoint, and the collected data can be automatically sent to SharePoint lists or activate automated workflows through Power Automate.
SharePoint Designer did not directly manage collaboration and communication, but it was often used to create communication solutions that could be integrated into its SharePoint pages.
Now these types of integrations are immediately exploitable thanks to the connection features of Microsoft Teams and Viva Engage, which have within them, by default, special connectors for connecting to their SharePoint environments.
Teams cards can incorporate SharePoint pages and lists, allowing users to access and interact with SharePoint content directly from Teams and the latter can, with the help of Power Automate, take advantage of automatic notification and sending options based on the activities carried out in SharePoint.
Viva Engage, on the other hand, allows you to implement social features within your SharePoint sites in a simpler way than in the past, making communication and the exchange of information between your company's employees more engaging.
SharePoint Designer allowed customizations through HTML, CSS and JavaScript at the time of its use, but their integration was not always simple or easy and the rapid progress of the web development landscape made it difficult for Designer to keep up with the most modern developments in this environment.
Now SharePoint Framework (SPFx), on the other hand, offers a modern and flexible model for the development of client-side solutions in SharePoint, facilitating integration with common development tools and JavaScript libraries widely used in the contemporary web development landscape, such as, for example, React and Angular.
Based on modern and open source web technologies, SPFx gives developers the ability to create web parts and extensions that integrate and work more smoothly within the modern SharePoint user interface.
Starting in 2016, during the period of gradual abandonment of Designer as a development solution for designing its SharePoint sites, the so-called “Modern Experience” has meanwhile been introduced and promoted by Microsoft as the future of its SharePoint.
This new interface and design framework were released gradually, with continuous updates and improvements that brought new functionality and improvements over the following years.
Microsoft's goal was to provide a more modern, responsive and user-friendly experience than the classic SharePoint interface, better adapted to the needs of modern organizations and integrating more closely with the rest of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
The substantial differences between SharePoint Designer and the SharePoint Online design interface therefore concern the approach to personalization, the ease of use and the available functionality.
SharePoint Designer allowed extensive control through direct editing of HTML, CSS, XSLT and others. Users could create and modify master pages, page layouts, and it allowed them to modify the source code of pages and other elements directly, offering flexibility but requiring significant technical expertise.
Designer was widely used to create complex custom workflows and allowed you to create and customize forms (for example, list forms) and data visualizations through Data View Web Part and XSLT, as well as providing management functions for site navigation, content structures and page links.
However, the correct use of all these features required a good knowledge of SharePoint and web technologies, making it a better tool for developers and advanced users.
The SharePoint Online interface, on the other hand, is designed to be used without the need to write code and is focused on a faster and more intuitive experience, accessible to a wider audience and that offers out of the box a wide range of web parts that can be easily configured and placed through the drag-and-drop interface provided by Microsoft.
The modern interface allows the creation of modern sites and pages, which are responsive and easier to use than the classic versions, and the customization of themes, layouts and contents without the need for code. Users can change colors, fonts, and styles through the user interface.
As we already mentioned in the previous section, for workflows and automation, the modern interface now exploits tight integration with the software of the Power Platform suite, such as Power Automate and Power Apps, offering users the possibility to take advantage of automation processes with minimal or no code writing.
The SharePoint Online interface is therefore designed to be easily used by business users without advanced technical knowledge and is ideal for those who want to create and manage content quickly and easily, without excessive consumption of time and business resources.
Since its first introduction, the SharePoint Online Modern Experience represented a significant step forward compared to the Classic Experience and offered the Microsoft public a more powerful, user-friendly and integrated platform for content management and collaboration within organizations, becoming what is now the standard for modern business needs.
With the deprecation of SharePoint Designer, the best practices for designing modern SharePoint sites now focus on making the most of the new possibilities offered by the SharePoint Online Modern Experience: from the implementation of new design functions related to compatibility and accessibility on different devices and screens and the use of the tools, integrations and frameworks offered by the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
These best practices aim to improve the usability, scalability, and maintainability of SharePoint sites.
SPFx can be used to develop web parts, custom extensions and advanced user interfaces for your SharePoint environments with the assurance that they are always compatible and functional. SPFx supports modern JavaScript libraries such as React, Angular, and Vue.js. We recommend creating reusable components for your sites in order to maintain design consistency and simplify maintenance.
With the widespread spread of mobile technologies, it has now become very important to adopt a mobile-first approach to ensure that sites work well on mobile devices before adapting them to larger screens. So let's make sure that we design our sites to be fully responsive and that they are always usable and quick to load on smartphones and tablets of different sizes and resolutions.
SharePoint Online provides predefined themes and layouts to quickly build functional pages suitable for any circumstance. Modern themes allow you to easily apply consistent styles across the site (with the possibility of customizing them through the SharePoint administration console) and implementing predefined SharePoint templates gives you the ability to quickly create sites with ready-to-use designs and functionality without having to waste excessive time in the process of designing and building the page.
We always try to ensure that our sites comply with accessibility standards (such as WCAG) to ensure that they are usable by all users, including those with disabilities and we adopt inclusive design principles to create sites that are accessible and easy to use for a wide variety of users. Style must never come at the expense of functionality under any circumstances, especially since intranets are first and foremost work tools.
The integration with the Power Platform suite is one of the innovations that has made it possible for SharePoint to make a qualitative leap in its design features that would once have been considered unthinkable. So let's try to make the most of its functionality. With Power Automate, it is possible to create workflows that automate repetitive business processes within your SharePoint web-environments, improving efficiency and reducing errors. Power Apps can be used to create customized forms and business-specific applications that integrate with SharePoint, and you can take advantage of the low-code capabilities of Power Apps to allow even non-technical users to contribute to the creation of business solutions.
We use all the tools provided by SharePoint to better structure and manage the architecture of our information. We make sure to order files and documents within our SharePoint storage spaces based on the types of content and we take advantage of the possibility of inserting metadata to organize our content in a coherent way and facilitate the operation of the search functions of our intranet.
Let's never forget, after finishing the design of our pages, to keep our eyes open to see if everything is going as it should. We frequently monitor site performance to ensure fast response times and a good user experience and we regularly use the analysis tools made available by Microsoft such as SharePoint Usage Analytics to monitor the use of the site and understand how we can possibly improve the interaction between user and page.
Although there are almost two years left until Microsoft completely discontinued support, SharePoint Designer is now largely abandoned in favor of the more modern features of SharePoint Online, more intuitive and faster to implement than Designer's old and technically complex solutions.
However, although SharePoint Designer is now a thing of the past, its legacy is still alive more than ever within all those software in the Microsoft 365 environment that have inherited its functionality for building and designing SharePoint sites and have pushed them in directions once considered unthinkable.
If you are still using Designer, we obviously invite you to seriously evaluate the transition to the most recent solutions offered by SharePoint Online and the rest of the tools made available within the Microsoft 365 environment for your digital workplaces and the design and management of your corporate intranets. In today's competitive landscape, having technologies capable of keeping up with the times is essential for the success of your company's objectives and we are pretty sure that you won't be disappointed by the change.
SharePoint Designer is a free tool provided by Microsoft that allows users to build and customize SharePoint sites and applications. It is particularly useful for creating workflows, designing page layouts, and customizing SharePoint features without needing extensive coding knowledge.
SharePoint Designer allows users to create workflows by providing a visual interface where actions, conditions, and steps can be configured. These workflows can automate business processes such as approvals, notifications, and data management within SharePoint.
SharePoint Designer 2013 is the last version released by Microsoft and will be supported until 2026. However, Microsoft has announced that there will be no future versions, and users are encouraged to transition to modern tools like Power Automate for workflow automation.
Yes, SharePoint Designer can be used to customize SharePoint Online, but its functionality is somewhat limited compared to its use with on-premises SharePoint. Users can still create workflows and design pages, but some advanced customization features are not supported in SharePoint Online.
Microsoft recommends using Power Automate for workflow automation and SharePoint Framework (SPFx) for customization of modern SharePoint sites. These tools offer more advanced features and are better integrated with the modern SharePoint environment.
SharePoint Designer integrates well with other Microsoft tools such as Visio for visualizing workflows and InfoPath for creating and managing forms. It also works seamlessly with SharePoint lists, libraries, and other site content to enable comprehensive customization and automation.
SharePoint Designer has limitations, including the inability to work with modern SharePoint pages, limited support for SharePoint Online, and no further updates or new features since 2013. Users looking for more robust and future-proof solutions should consider using newer tools like Power Automate and SharePoint Framework.
Yes, SharePoint Designer is designed to be user-friendly and can be used by non-developers to create workflows, design pages, and customize SharePoint sites. It provides a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built templates, making it accessible to users without coding experience.
SharePoint Designer can be downloaded and installed from the official Microsoft website. It is available as a free tool, and users can choose between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions depending on their system requirements.
SharePoint Designer 2013 is compatible with SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016, SharePoint 2019, and SharePoint Online. However, some features may not be fully supported or available, particularly when used with SharePoint Online.
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