SharePoint Designer (discontinued)

Score3 out of 10

67 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for SharePoint Designer (discontinued) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Hidden Lists Feature: Users have appreciated the ability to view hidden lists, making it easier to manage their content effectively. This feature enhances organization and accessibility of data within SharePoint, allowing users to keep track of all relevant information in a structured manner.

Sharing Links Option: Reviewers found the option to display sharing links helpful for deleting them efficiently, enhancing their control over access permissions and simplifying permission management tasks. By easily managing sharing links, users can ensure secure access to documents and files.

Workflow Efficiency: Customers highlighted the convenience of working with workflows, editing master pages, and utilizing publishing features in SharePoint. These functionalities streamline content management processes and improve overall productivity by providing a user-friendly interface for efficient workflow creation and execution.

Reviews

17 Reviews

SharePoint Designer - Tool to customize SharePoint

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

August 10, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using SharePoint Designer to create specific customs for our Intranet and Extranet platforms.

We have been using SharePoint Designer 2013 with both SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Server 2016.

It is used by several departments in our organization :
- IT services
- BU like Data Center, DevOps, etc

How are we using SharePoint Designer ?
- Update specific pages
- Create workflows
- Access libraries
- Publish pages
- Update master pages

Pros

Workflows
Editing master pages
Publishing features

Cons

Synchronization
Application's size
Application's speed

Likelihood to Recommend

SharePoint does not provide, out of the box, a tool to create / update workflows from web. You have to use SharePoint Designer in order to create them.
If you need to implement custom workflows for specific business processes, then SharePoint Designer is well suited.
SharePoint Designer allows you to create workflows with task approval, email notifications, assign variables and update SharePoint Lists / Documents properties.

In our company, we have created specific workflows for :
- Purchase order
- RH forms validation like annual employee review
- Dematerialized existing forms and validation

Jordan Deroubaix

Programmer in Information Technology at NXO (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

Outdated

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

August 2, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I occasionally use it on old sites because they're harder to manage than modern pages. It's my last resort when I can't find something on a Classic site that I didn't build. It is at its end of life, and I can't imagine anyone would use it for any other purpose, save those so resistant to change that they will keep it until it's deprecated.

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

To me, it's the most helpful on Classic sites, which is what it was designed to design. Modern pages are easier to edit and audit, so it really isn't any help. I can't see any point in recommending an obsolete product to a colleague that hasn't used it, unless they are needing to find, document, or replace old sites and workflows.

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

SharePoint Designer - don't use it for new work anymore!

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

July 29, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SharePoint Designer is now only used for older SharePoint farms (2010 or 2013 generally). We use it at my company to view old workflows and SharePoint content (on old farms) to prepare for migrations to SharePoint Online (Microsoft 365). We don't recommend companies use it for new work at this time. It is being phased out by Microsoft and replaced by new tools in SharePoint Online such as Power Automate. If you do have old SharePoint farms you can use it, but again, I would not recommend using it to create new workflows.

Pros

Reviewing Workflows - but again, don't create new ones
Reviewing content on old SharePoint farms

Cons

It is being phased out by Microsoft so they are not improving it anymore.

Likelihood to Recommend

We don't recommend companies use [SharePoint Designer] for new work at this time. It is being phased out by Microsoft and replaced by new tools in SharePoint Online such as Power Automate. If you do have old SharePoint farms you can use it, but again, I would not recommend using it to create new workflows.

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

11 years of experience

Valuable tool for SharePoint customization

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

January 29, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using SharePoint Designer to customize SharePoint sites, and developing and deployment of custom solutions on SharePoint. It's the best tool for designing site pages and developing workflows. We are resolving business requirements of creating different levels of approval workflows and providing custom solutions.

Pros

Customization of SharePoint.
Deployment of workflow solutions.

Cons

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

Likelihood to Recommend

SharePoint Designer is well suited to develop custom workflow solution and deploy on SharePoint sites. It is also used to customize site master pages and template modification along with custom search.

It is not suited for designing site pages and for developing highly customized solutions, as it will crash.

Krishn Garg

Technology Analyst in Information Technology at Infosys (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Decent product

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

April 10, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it for workflows that do not require cross-site lookups.

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for simple workflows and easy conversion of lookup fields to text. Not well suited for complex workflows. Not well suited for cross-site lookups. The issue I am facing is that we have a list of all shop locations. The list lives on the root site of one of our 3 site collections and has many details about each shop. There is also managed metadata with just the shop location name to be used as a lookup field in many lists in all three site collections. This can't be accomplished in SharePoint Designer.

Laura Stein

Office365 Solutions Specialist in Information Technology at Union Tank Car (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

SharePoint Designer Novice

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

April 10, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Currently, I am using SharePoint Designer to manage apps, edit HTML pages and manage files. I thought I would use it more to edit forms but I prefer InfoPath. I find it more useful to edit. When I want to get a clear picture of the hierarchy in SharePoint, I use SharePoint Designer. I find it difficult at times to navigate the breadcrumbs to get to what I want. It does not seem to be too forgiving when you want to navigate from one subsite to another.

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

SharePoint Designer is good if you want to do a custom page design—editing the master page in SharePoint. I have never done this. I like to use SharePoint Designer for moving pages around within a site. It is not as easy if you want to move pages between sites. If I am looking to edit HTML or apps, I am able to track down code through the SharePoint Designer interface. It is useful for locating all the files that make up pages. It is not my go-to for design because I would rather use an interface where it is WYSIWYG and not bounce from one screen to a browser to view the results of changes made.

Doreen Giles

Elearning Specialist, Video Production in Information Technology at State of New Jersey (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Ah-ha thoughts after using SharePoint Designer

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

December 22, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SharePoint Designer offers a variety of options when implementing this tool in SharePoint itself. It allows SharePoint developers to create workflows, customize SharePoint sites and create forms using InfoPath. For the customer I was serving, I was using SharePoint Designer for a custom workflow and form to solve a business problem where previously, the customer used Outlook emails to send and receive, approve or reject, edit and archive privacy documents. The customer realized that this was a poor approach for their business process and wanted a better way of managing privacy documents. Using SharePoint Designer gave our team the tools it needed to craft and maintain an autonomous workflow of sending, receiving, assessing and archiving government documents.

Pros

SharePoint Designer offers more granularity of customizing a workflow that is more sophisticated solution that can effectively delegate tasks to responsible parties and reflects status updates of task status.
SharePoint Designer allows SharePoint professionals the ability to customize a SharePoint site with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript that can be integrated in .ASPX pages.
SharePoint Designer offers form customization where Office products such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint cannot meet specific government requirements and or expectations.

Cons

Microsoft will be deprecating SharePoint Designer in 2023, forcing organizations and developers to either start using SharePoint Online or invest in compatible third-party applications.
SharePoint Designer is not user-friendly for new developers. The learning curve is moderate, depending on the background of SharePoint developers. Albeit, there are YouTube videos on how to configure a workflow, create an InfoPath form and manipulate a SharePoint site, but be prepared to invest time for training if someone has never seen nor used SharePoint Designer before.
Deprecation of SharePoint Designer is indicative by the unavailability of SharePoint Designer 2016, because Microsoft will stop supporting it.
One limitation I had to deal with when working with IP forms was the limited set of controls. Compared to ASP.NET, the IP control are very limited. Many times I had to find workaround. If you design the IP form to open up in the browser you will get more restrictions.

Likelihood to Recommend

SharePoint Designer is a great HTML web page designer that allows customization of master pages, page layouts, CSS, and JavaScript. SharePoint Designer can also add KPI elements to your List Views through the creation of Conditional Formatting (i.e. having the font display in Red for any overdue tasks). It can also create a web part connection that allowed you to connect web parts across pages, like the ability to create a connection that allowed you to select an item in a list on one page and open another page to view data that was associated with the selected item.

If you opt to use SharePoint Designer, latest version 2013 for SharePoint Online or on-premise, here is what you can do with a SharePoint list: Custom list, Permissions, Columns, Views, Forms, Content Type and set Custom Actions.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Review of MS SharePoint for Cloud Based Company

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

July 17, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it to collaborate and share data with different depts. and with our user experience consultants. Everyone has a shared dept that we can go in and get the information we need. We like that it is cloud-based and can be accessed anywhere. We work remote half of the time so this helps us complete our tasks and jobs.

Pros

Collaborate
Access by Cloud

Cons

Sometimes can be cumbersome to sign in
Had had an issue during an update where we couldn't access SharePoint and had to involve our IT dept to help set up shared drive folders on my computer

Likelihood to Recommend

Our organization is a unified communications company that values its employees and allows them to work remote. SharePoint allows us to share the information and everyone has access to the information they need to finish their tasks.

This would not be very valuable in a very small business where everyone is centrally located.

James Mcbride

User Experience Manager in Information Technology at Clarity Voice (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

SharePoint Designer Review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

[It's] Used for workflow design and page customization.

Pros

Workflows
Page customization
Light BCS

Cons

Workflow connectors to other systems would be useful.
Page design can be made easier with WYSIWYG rich text edit capabilities.
Workflow scheduling capability that ties in to something server-side - perhaps a timer job - would be very useful.

Likelihood to Recommend

Good for: simple to medium complexity workflows.
Weak on: scalability, portability, easy connection to other systems.

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

SharePoint Designer Review

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

April 17, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a SharePoint designer, and developer, I use SharePoint Designer to edit, configure and create workflows in SharePoint Online and on-premise.

Pros

Workflows
List and Library configuration
Permissions

Cons

GUI Interface editing pages

Likelihood to Recommend

Cost efficient way to create custom workflows.

Scott Rawls

Enterprise Content Management Supervisor in Professional Services at RSM US (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

View profile

Loading Reviews List....

Ah-ha thoughts after using SharePoint Designer

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

December 22, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

SharePoint Designer offers more granularity of customizing a workflow that is more sophisticated solution that can effectively delegate tasks to responsible parties and reflects status updates of task status.
SharePoint Designer allows SharePoint professionals the ability to customize a SharePoint site with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript that can be integrated in .ASPX pages.
SharePoint Designer offers form customization where Office products such as Word, Excel or PowerPoint cannot meet specific government requirements and or expectations.

Cons

Microsoft will be deprecating SharePoint Designer in 2023, forcing organizations and developers to either start using SharePoint Online or invest in compatible third-party applications.
SharePoint Designer is not user-friendly for new developers. The learning curve is moderate, depending on the background of SharePoint developers. Albeit, there are YouTube videos on how to configure a workflow, create an InfoPath form and manipulate a SharePoint site, but be prepared to invest time for training if someone has never seen nor used SharePoint Designer before.
Deprecation of SharePoint Designer is indicative by the unavailability of SharePoint Designer 2016, because Microsoft will stop supporting it.
One limitation I had to deal with when working with IP forms was the limited set of controls. Compared to ASP.NET, the IP control are very limited. Many times I had to find workaround. If you design the IP form to open up in the browser you will get more restrictions.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience