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SharePoint Designer (discontinued)

Score6 out of 10

65 Reviews and Ratings

What is SharePoint Designer (discontinued)?

Microsoft's SharePoint Designer was a tool for developing SharePoint applications that has been discontinued.

Categories & Use Cases

SharePoint Designer - Tool to customize SharePoint

Pros

  • Workflows
  • Editing master pages
  • Publishing features

Cons

  • Synchronization
  • Application's size
  • Application's speed

Most Important Features

  • Workflow
  • Master page
  • Publishing

Return on Investment

  • High set-up time
  • Complex tool

Alternatives Considered

Nintex Process Platform

Other Software Used

Nintex Process Platform, SonarQube

Decent product

Pros

  • SP2010 workflows are the easiest way to get a text from a lookup field.
  • Workflows are free.
  • Fairly easy to use, intuitive interface.
  • Branding and CSS styling on the master page.

Cons

  • Cross-site and cross-site collection lookups.
  • Get text from lookup fields in 2013 (or next release). It is cumbersome to need multiple workflows for one task.
  • No ability to edit DispForm.aspx, etc.

Return on Investment

  • Positive: Where we can use it, it saves the cost of a Nintex workflow.
  • Negative: Nothing really. It doesn't have all the features I would like, but what it has worked fine.

Alternatives Considered

Nintex Platform

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365 Business, Nintex Platform, Notepad++

Valuable tool for SharePoint customization

Pros

  • Customization of SharePoint.
  • Deployment of workflow solutions.

Cons

  • Tool itself needs improvement as it sometime crashes.
  • SPFX page modification.

Return on Investment

  • Business satisfaction in customizing things.
  • Cost-free when you have on-premise environment.

Alternatives Considered

PowerApps and Flow

Other Software Used

PowerApps, Microsoft Flow

SharePoint Designer Novice

Pros

  • Allows me to go directly to the file structure I want to examine.
  • Allows me to move files from one area within a site to another.
  • Good for editing the HTML code within a page.

Cons

  • Navigation between sub-sites and beyond the entry point is not seamless. I find it difficult to get to the root of a directory structure if I have not started there.
  • Would love to be able to do WYSIWYG in some form. I have only used it for a year but I have not found anything fancy to do.
  • I would like to be able to work in a development site and easily move to the production site.

Return on Investment

  • For my needs, I have not found SharePoint Designer useful for my day to day maintenance of SharePoint. It is useful for viewing all the objects that make up the SharePoint site.
  • It is not as intuitive in regard to setting up Workflows. I have yet to use it to set up workflows in SharePoint. Maybe if I needed more complex workflows, it would be beneficial.
  • I like to use SharePoint Designer for moving around files within SharePoint sites.

Other Software Used

Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator CC

Outdated

Pros

  • Shows hidden lists
  • Shows sharing links so I can delete them
  • Easier to navigate from one list or library to get a quick comparison

Cons

  • The interface is really dated
  • Preview in Browser doesn't work half the time
  • There's no help or tooltips
  • Easy to go down a rabbit hole, but not always easy to revert back
  • Product is obsolete and will be deprecated.

Most Important Features

  • Editing and reviewing older site pages and settings

Return on Investment

  • Minimal, we're government and ROI isn't tracked for most objectives

Other Software Used

MS SharePoint, Nintex PromappĀ®, Microsoft Power Automate (formerly Microsoft Flow)