SharePoint Alerts Replacement Alternatives - Power Automate and SharePoint Rules

As of July 2025 Microsoft will be disallowing new SharePoint Alerts for newly onboarded tenants, with complete removal of the ability to use SharePoint Alerts as of July 2026.Due to this SharePoint site owners will need to migrate their SharePoint Alerts to either Power Automate or SharePoint Rules.

The following documentation will outline the process of replicating SharePoint Alerts within Power Automate or SharePoint Rules. To determine which alternative would be best suited for you please consider the following:

• SharePoint Rules are a built-in automation tool within SharePoint Online that allow users to create simple rules for notifications based on list or library activity

• Power Automate is a more powerful automate platform that allows for complex workflows and integrations including SharePoint.

Power Automation:

Step 1: Creation of a Flow

IST recommends that created SharePoint Alert replacements done within Power Automate be done within a generic account (A1) to avoid rules being orphaned during staff transitions.

• Go to Power Automate from Microsoft Application portal page

• Navigate to the Create option in the side navigation and click the Automated cloud flow

• Within the resulting windows name the flow based on it’s function and search for the corresponding trigger

The following Microsoft documentation lists and describes the various tigger options within Power Automate: Microsoft SharePoint Connector for Power Automate.

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Step 2: Configuring Trigger Fields

• Set the Site Address field for the chosen trigger

  • This would be the URL for the SharePoint Site (e.g. https://uofwaterloo.sharepoint.com/sites/Site-Name/)

• Set the Library Name field for the chosen trigger from the list of SharePoint site’s libraries

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Step 3: Add E-mail Action

• Click on the Add Action Icon within the flow

• Search for add an e-mail action

• Select Send an e-mail (V2) Office 365 Outlook action option

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Step 4: Configuring Action Fields

• Set the To field for the send e-mail action

• Set the Subject field for the send e-mail action

  • Note: the filename can be included in the subject of the sent e-mail by including the Title from the trigger

• Create the Body of the send e-mail action with desired text

  • Note: the body content of the e-mail can be enriched by including the property values from the flow trigger step

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Step 5: Save Flow

SharePoint Rules

Step 1: Creation of a SharePoint Rule

• Go to the Documents section of the SharePoint site

• Navigate to the Automate → Rules → Create a rule menu option and confirm navigation

• Within the resulting menu select the action for which the rule will execute; this example will illustrate the “when a new file is added” option

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Step 2: Configure the SharePoint Rule

• Set the execution trigger condition to always

  • Note: complex condition can be configured by selecting the if (condition), this allows for further trigger condition customization

• Optional: Users are able to compose a custom e-mail message for the notification

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Step 3: Create Rule

• Click on the Create Button to confirm the configured SharePoint Rule

  • Note: upon creation a list of all created rules are displayed, the user can enable/disable active rules by toggling the on/off button

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