Save Your SharePoint Alerts Before They’re Gone
Microsoft has announced the retirement of SharePoint Alerts for SharePoint Online. For organizations that have relied on alerts for years to track document updates, list changes, approvals, and critical business activity, this is a major change. (Microsoft Support)
The good news?
You do not need to lose visibility into your existing alerts.
With the right preparation, you can export and preserve your current SharePoint Alerts today — making it much easier to restore and modernize them later with Alert Plus.
What’s Happening to SharePoint Alerts?
Microsoft is retiring the classic SharePoint Alerts feature in phases. According to Microsoft’s published guidance:
- New alert creation is being phased out
- Existing alerts will eventually expire
- Full retirement is expected by July 2026
- Microsoft recommends moving to Power Automate or SharePoint Rules (Microsoft Support)
Many organizations have thousands of alerts spread across:
- SharePoint lists
- Document libraries
- Team sites
- Department portals
- Workflow-driven business processes
In many cases, users don’t even realize how dependent they are on alerts until they stop working.
Why You Should Export Your Alerts Now
Before alerts disappear, organizations should create a backup inventory of:
- Who owns alerts
- Which sites and lists use alerts
- Alert frequency and delivery settings
- Critical business notification patterns
This information becomes incredibly valuable when planning a migration to modern notifications.
Exporting alerts now gives you:
- A safety net
- Visibility into alert usage
- A migration roadmap
- The ability to recreate alerts later in Alert Plus
Think of it as preserving your notification infrastructure before retirement begins.
Microsoft’s Recommended Assessment Tool
Microsoft’s PnP community has released a SharePoint Alerts Assessment capability within the Microsoft 365 Assessment Tool. (PNP GitHub)
The tool helps organizations:
- Discover existing SharePoint Alerts
- Export alert data
- Generate reports
- Analyze alert usage across the tenant
- Prepare for migration planning
The assessment output can be used later to help recreate or modernize alert behavior.
What the Assessment Tool Does
The SharePoint Alerts Assessment scans your Microsoft 365 tenant and gathers information about alert subscriptions. According to the documentation, it provides:
- Alert usage data
- CSV exports
- Power BI reporting
- Tenant-wide visibility into SharePoint Alerts (PNP GitHub)
This is especially useful for:
- SharePoint administrators
- IT governance teams
- Compliance teams
- Organizations with long-running SharePoint environments
High-Level Steps to Export Your Alerts
Here’s the simplified process:
- Download the Microsoft 365 Assessment Tool
Get the latest version from the PnP Assessment project.
- Configure Authentication
The tool uses an Entra ID (Azure AD) application registration with certificate authentication.
- Run the Alerts Assessment Mode
Example command from the documentation:
.\microsoft365-assessment.exe start –mode Alerts
- Review the Exported Results
The tool generates:
- CSV files
- Reporting data
- Power BI-compatible outputs
- Store the Results Safely
Keep the exported data secure and accessible for future migration work.
How Alert Plus Fits In
At Bamboo Solutions, we believe organizations should not lose years of operational knowledge simply because a legacy feature is being retired.
That’s why Alert Plus is designed to help organizations modernize notifications while preserving the value of their existing alert configurations.
By exporting your alerts now, you create the opportunity to:
- Rebuild important alerts later
- Migrate business-critical notifications
- Modernize alert logic
- Improve governance and visibility
- Reduce user disruption
Even if you are not ready to migrate immediately, preserving your alert inventory today is the smartest next step.
Don’t Wait Until Alerts Stop Working
Many organizations are postponing planning because the retirement dates still feel far away. But once alerts begin expiring or disappearing, recreating years of notification logic becomes difficult and time-consuming.
Exporting your alerts now gives you:
- Time to plan
- Better visibility
- Safer migrations
- Less operational risk
Resources
Microsoft SharePoint Alerts Retirement
PnP SharePoint Alerts Assessment Tool
PnP Assessment GitHub Repository
