Inside Microsoft’s 2026 MS365 Retirements: What MSPs Need to Manage Now

As 2026 moves into February, businesses are evaluating how Microsoft’s many scheduled feature retirements, replacements, and changes in MS365 throughout the year will affect employees and operations worldwide.

The retirements and changes span a wide range of MS365 products and services, including Exchange, Azure, Teams, SharePoint, Publisher, Project, Entra, and more.

Feature retirements and new feature introductions happen regularly in software. Still, they can be disruptive when configuration changes must be made in advance or when employees lose MS365 features they have relied on for years.

“Feature retirements absolutely create real challenges for customers, especially when Microsoft sunsets something that has quietly become part of their daily workflow,” said Colin Knox, CEO and co-founder of Gradient MSP, speaking with ChannelE2E. “Most businesses do not track the Microsoft roadmap closely, so these changes often feel sudden, even when Microsoft has technically provided notice months in advance.”

This is where MSPs and other channel partners can provide valuable assistance, Knox said.

“What MSPs do in these moments is act as the translation layer and shock absorber,” he said. “Our job is to stay ahead of Microsoft’s retirement schedule, identify what features a client is actually using, and then proactively guide them through the transition before anything breaks. Customers do not want surprises, and they definitely do not want downtime.”

Wayne Hunter, co-founder and CEO of Avtek Solutions, agreed, adding that MSPs must constantly look ahead to understand how upcoming feature and product retirements will affect customers’ businesses.

“Part of our service processes and procedures is to continually evaluate configurations and determine, during upgrades, migrations, or even day-to-day add-on services, what information must be addressed to optimize the situation,” said Hunter. “We track feature changes so we are ready ahead of time to make the right adjustments with client approval before they happen.”

Hunter said that by consistently monitoring customer deployments, his company works to prevent disruptions caused by feature retirements and changes.

“I think the clients most affected by this will be smaller organizations that did a simple purchase and setup directly with Microsoft,” he said.

MS365 Retirements and Changes Expected in 2026

A recent Reddit post compiled a list of notable MS365 feature retirements and changes expected through the end of 2026, including:

Several retirements already occurred in January, including multiple Microsoft Planner features and IDCRL authentication in SharePoint and OneDrive.

Significant pricing changes are also coming for MS365 in 2026, which MSPs and other channel partners will need to help customers navigate.

Customers Do Not Have to Manage These Transitions on Their Own: Knox

Knox told ChannelE2E that some of the most impactful retirements this year include the removal of SharePoint Alerts and the deprecation of Exchange Web Services (EWS).

“A surprising number of organizations still depend on those simple alerts for document approvals, file changes, or internal notifications,” he said. “Replacing them requires rebuilding those triggers in Power Automate or SharePoint Rules, which is doable but not automatic. On the EWS side, many third-party applications and line-of-business tools still rely on EWS under the hood. Moving those integrations to Microsoft Graph can require real development effort, and if it is missed, it can cause serious disruption.”

These feature and service retirements are part of the reality of cloud software, but customers do not have to manage these transitions alone, Knox said.

“A good MSP turns Microsoft’s change cycle into a managed transition instead of an emergency. This is also a great opportunity for MSPs to demonstrate trusted partner status by being proactive and coming to customers with solutions instead of problems.”

One of the most important areas where MSPs can help is migrating customers to alternative products and services that replace outgoing features, he said.

“Microsoft usually wants customers moving toward more secure and supported platforms, like Power Automate, Workflows in Teams, or Entra-based Conditional Access,” Knox said. “The MSP role is making that migration practical, not theoretical.”

MSPs Can Truly Shine in Helping Customers with Feature Retirements: Analysts

Paul Nashawaty, principal analyst for application development and modernization at theCUBE Research, said that when Microsoft announces feature retirements—especially a large batch in a single year—“it absolutely creates ripple effects for MSP customers, and MSPs usually hear about it very quickly.”

Customer reactions can range from mild annoyance to “full-on panic when a retired feature is something teams quietly rely on every day,” Nashawaty said.

“Things like Teams connectors or SharePoint alerts often fall into that category,” he said. “They are not flashy, but they power workflows, notifications, and automations that people forget are even there until they break. MSPs end up playing translator and therapist at the same time, explaining what is going away, when it will happen, and whether it is business-critical or just inconvenient.”

Most customers are accustomed to Microsoft’s constant evolution, he said, but that does not mean they are comfortable with it, especially when changes feel forced or poorly timed.

“This is where good channel partners really earn their keep,” Nashawaty said. “MSPs help by auditing which retired features are actually in use, calming the noise, and then offering clear paths forward—whether that means migrating to Microsoft’s preferred replacement, building a workaround with Power Automate, or recommending a third-party tool that does the job better.”

For example, the retirement of Office 365 connectors in Teams can impact customers who rely on simple webhook-style alerts, pushing MSPs to rebuild those flows using Power Automate or alternative integrations, he said. Similarly, changes to Entra ID protection policies may force customers to rethink identity risk and conditional access strategies.

“Customers do not always love the idea of new tools, but they do appreciate having options laid out with clear pros, cons, and costs,” Nashawaty said. “In the end, the MSP’s role is less about fighting Microsoft’s roadmap and more about helping customers land safely when the ground shifts, ideally with minimal disruption to how they get work done.”

Rob Enderle, founder and principal analyst at Enderle Group, said feature changes become particularly difficult when they break long-established integrations and workflows with other applications and systems.

“Company-built processes sit behind many of these features, and those processes are now at increasing risk of breaking,” Enderle said. “Customers need to modify those processes to remove dependencies.”

Channel partners, including MSPs, can help by “creating and spreading best practices for decoupling Office 365, which is on a fast path toward obsolescence,” Enderle said. “This is a warning that Microsoft Office, as we know it, is going away—but not immediately—giving MSPs and companies time to develop operational strategies for moving off the platform.”

To do this, “MSPs must develop an AI-forward, comprehensive strategy and fold in expected advances from various platforms to create a path toward a more agile future,” Enderle said. “Agility during a period of massive change will be a leading competitive advantage and critical to company survival.”

For customers, MS365 changes are arriving at the same time as major disruptions to business processes driven by the rapid growth of AI, Enderle added.

So, are MS365 customers getting overwhelmed by these retirements?

“AI is already causing massive disruption at an unprecedented rate,” Enderle said. “So saying companies are ‘freaking out’ is likely an understatement.”