Here's the Business Connectivity Services retirement timeline
Business Connectivity Services will be fully retired by 2024.
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Key notes
- Microsoft will replace Business Connectivity Services with Microsoft Power Apps.
- The retirement has already begun and it will continue in 2024.
- The Redmond-based tech giant prepared a list of recommendations for organizations still using the Services.
Microsoft plans to retire the Business Connectivity Services, a popular service that allows for SharePoint Server and Office clients to act as interfaces to data that doesn’t live in SharePoint servers.
The Redmond-based tech giant announced the retirement of Business Connectivity Services, as it plans to replace it with Microsoft Power Apps, as a result.
As SharePoint has evolved into a cloud-first service, so too have the options for customers that wish to integrate with external data sources. To simplify these options and provide the best experience for these scenarios going forward, Microsoft is announcing its plan to retire Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in Microsoft 365 and focus on Microsoft Power Apps as its replacement technology.
Microsoft
Microsoft will retire all the features of this service, including:
- External lists, columns, and content types
- Business Connectivity Services hybrid solutions
The retirement is scheduled to start this month, in October and it will continue all throughout 2024.
Business Connectivity Services retirement timeline
- October 2, 2023: Retirement announcement and customers can proactively set a property to block Business Connectivity Services features within their tenant.
- October 30, 2023: Microsoft will begin blocking Business Connectivity Services features based on the tenant property set by the customer.
- January 8, 2024: Microsoft will block Business Connectivity Services features in new Microsoft 365 tenants by default, as well as in tenants who haven’t used the feature since October 30, 2023.
- September 30, 2024: Business Connectivity Services is fully retired in Microsoft 365.
As you can see, in less than a year, Business Connectivity Services will be fully retired. Microsoft recommends switching to Microsoft Power Apps as soon as possible. Plus, the Redmond-based tech giant also recommends blocking Business Connectivity Services features within your tenant.
Customers can prepare for the Business Connectivity Services retirement by setting a property that will block this feature in their tenant. This will ensure that users within your tenant won’t start using this feature if it isn’t already in use.
Microsoft
You can find more details about managing the impact of this retirement, by following Microsoft’s latest blog about it.
