101 reasons why SharePoint 2019 Modern is not a good idea
Migrating your SharePoint farm to Modern sites in SharePoint 2019 has some nice advantages, but also al lot of disadvantages. Going to the cloud takes away a lot of this disadvantages but if that’s not an option (yet) maybe you can still use the classic mode or a combination of classic sites and modern sites.
Someone asked me this week: Give me one good reason why ‘Modern sites’ in combination with SharePoint 2019 (On Prem) is not a good idea? Give me 10 minutes and I’ll give you 101 reasons I said 🙂
So why is ‘Modern’ in combination with SharePoint On Premise not a good idea?
Farm
1. Patching your SharePoint servers every month is a lot of work;
2. You need redundant servers for zero downtime patching;
3. You have to do al lot of steps for zero downtime patching;
4. No reliable roadmap for SharePoint On Prem;
5. Not clear how much versions of SharePoint On Prem will follow;
6. You are a year behind with your SharePoint functionalities;
7. You need Backup Restore software, antivirus and procedures;
8. You need load balancing and multifactor authentication;
9. You need a Infra/SharePoint specialist and a SQL DBA’er;
10. You are missing all the apps and integration options in Office 365;
11. You are missing all the security and compliance options in Office 365;
12. Sharing content with external users is not easy and a lot of work;
13. Most of all, you are missing the integration with Teams;
Modern sites
14. You can only choose for a communication site or a team site template
15. Not possible to switch between sites templates;
16. No record center, document center, blogsites etc. in modern;
17. No Hub sites so every site has his own branding;
18. No presence information in modern sites anymore;
Site settings
19. All the settings on your site are a mixture of classic and modern pages;
20. Site permissions doesn’t give you all the options so you have to click on ‘advanced’ for the classic screen with all the options;
21. Not possible to change the option to send an email in the modern site permissions screen;
22. Site settings pages are still classic pages with other navigation options etc.;
23. Some classic features like the publishing feature gives an error on modern sites but are still available;
24. Not possible to go directly to the site settings page, only through the Site properties;
Navigation
25. No Hub sites so no central top navigation;
26. No megamenu options or anything you can configure;
27. Not possible to add a Quick Launch menu on the left side on a communication site;
28. On a communication site the top navigation is in fact the Quick Launch horizontal so be careful when using PowerShell, change the right menu.
29. On a team site the Quick Launch is on the left side and the top navigation at the top;
30. The top navigation on a Team site looks different than on a communication site;
31. No audience targeting in navigation;
32. The waffle has only two apps and users don’t understand the use of the waffle;
33. Custom Tiles in the Waffle are possible with PowerShell but the ClearSuiteLinksCache() command is not possible on modern pages so you need a classic site to see the changes immediately or wait 24 hour;
Pages
34. No vertical sections on a page possible;
35. No custom themes or branding possibilities;
36. No custom CSS options;
37. Only one, two or three columns possible;
38. No migration options from publishing pages to modern pages;
39. Not possible to create page layouts or web part zones;
40. You only have three page layouts options when creating a page from another site page;
41. The comments option in a page is default on;
42. You can only turn the comments options off when editing the page, not when you create the page for the first time;
43. The ‘New’ button on the page is not configurable;
44. Not possible to change the name in de URL when creating a page;
45. You always have to click the ‘promoting page’ screen away when you first publish a page;
46. Header image height is not configurable;
47. No (java)scripts allowed on pages;
48. No delete option on a modern page;
49. Scheduling news is not possible;
50. Not possible to see the difference between normal modern pages and news pages;
Lists and libraries
51. Wiki pages, calendars, tasks etc. are still in classic mode;
52. Some options from the classic ribbon are not available in the modern options;
53. No Picture library (default);
54. You can only see thumbnails of images in explorer view (in Internet Explorer);
55. New list/library gives you no option for choosing a type of list/library;
56. Explorer view is only working in Internet Explorer but it’s not a stable browser for editing modern pages;
57. Not possible to hide all the sharing options;
58. No modern workflow options;
59. You still need the classic list settings page for advanced options for list;
60. No row-based formatting;
61. Managed metadata navigation configuration is not possible anymore;
Views
62. For removing a column you have to click on ‘+’ and ‘Apply’ on top of the tool pane (not handy);
63. When changing a view on the page you have to click on ‘save as’ for saving the current view;
64. You still need the classic ‘edit view’ page for the advanced options;
65. Some options in the ‘edit view’ doesn’t work anymore (selections, styling, totals etc.);
Web parts
66. Using 75 classic web parts not possible anymore in modern sites;
67. You only have a small selection of the web parts available in SharePoint Online;
68. You can’t hide web parts from the list (for example Stream web part);
69. No thumbnails when inserting an image from the site on a page;
70. You don’t have a flexible Search Query webpart with all the query options;
71. The modern web parts don’t have many configuration options;
72. The web part for embedding code doesn’t work for video in libraries (only YouTube) so you can only create a hyperlink (in a text webpart or multiple text column) to a video file;
73. When you use a document library web part for video files, they are not opening in the browser;
74. In a link web part you can’t choose PDF files for example from a site library. So you have to copy paste the URL to PDF files;
75. In a link web part you can only choose two layout options and only in the small one you can sort your links;
76. Text editor in text web part is not user friendly;
77. Changing or removing hyperlinks in text is not easy;
78. Not possible to add an image in a text area or table in a text area;
79. No wiki links or options in pages possible;
80. Adding web parts doesn’t always work very stable in Internet Explorer. You have to save the pages sometimes before you can see the web part screen;
81. You’re missing al the standard tool pane options for webparts, like width, height;
82. Not possible to connect web parts or use filters;
83. Web parts with long lists and using a ‘Group by’ gives sometimes script errors;
84. No audience targeting in web parts;
85. Hero webpart is missing some functionalities;
86. No hub sites so also no aggregation of news in a hub;
87. No hub sites so also nog aggregation of calendar items in a hub;
Documents
88. You need a separate server for Office Online (for previews and editing in browser)
89. PDF conversion is not working out of the box and not configurable;
90. No previews of all the different filetypes;
91. No modern Document sets possible;
Search
92. Modern Search box is not configurable
93. Modern Search page is not configurable;
94. Modern Search results page is missing all the refinement and advanced options;
95. Not possible to link from a modern search box on your homepage to a classic search center;
96. Not possible to link from the modern search results to a classic search center;
97. No Navigation on the search result page (only back);
98. No Search options above a list or list web part;
99. No hub sites so no searching in hub;
100. Most of the search settings are not working in modern search pages;
And last but not least:
101 If you think that this migration is expensive, you need to do one or more migrations after this one if you’re not going to the cloud 😉
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Free advice about the migration of your SharePoint farm? Send me an email:
Auke Bergsma
Strategic Consultant
Auke.Bergsma@Motion10.com