Introduction

Workflow history has always played an important role in SharePoint-based business processes. Whether you are managing document approvals, tracking publishing activity, or auditing internal processes, workflow history provides visibility into who approved what and when.

In older SharePoint environments, workflow history was commonly associated with classic SharePoint workflows and Workflow Manager. However, modern Microsoft 365 environments have evolved significantly. Today, organisations are increasingly using Power Automate and Microsoft 365 workflows instead of legacy SharePoint workflows.

This article explains how SharePoint workflow history works, why workflow history entries may disappear over time, and what modern alternatives exist for tracking approvals and workflow activity in Microsoft 365.

What Is SharePoint Workflow History?

Workflow history records the actions that occur during a workflow process. For example, in a document approval workflow, history entries may include:

• Who started the workflow
• Which users approved or rejected the document
• When actions were completed
• Comments entered during approval
• Workflow status changes

This information can be essential for:

• Compliance and auditing
• Governance
• Document lifecycle management
• Troubleshooting workflow issues
• Tracking approval activity

In classic SharePoint environments, workflow history was typically stored in hidden SharePoint lists associated with the site collection.

How Workflow History Worked in Classic SharePoint

In older SharePoint Server deployments, workflows often relied on:

• SharePoint 2010 workflows
• SharePoint 2013 workflows
• Workflow Manager
• SharePoint Designer workflows

When a workflow ran, SharePoint created entries in:

• The Workflow History list
• The Workflow Tasks list

These lists tracked workflow actions and assigned tasks.

Although this approach worked well, workflow history data could grow very quickly in enterprise environments.

Why Workflow History Entries Disappeared

One of the most common questions administrators encountered was:

“Why has the workflow history disappeared?”

The answer was usually related to SharePoint’s automatic cleanup process.

The Workflow Auto Cleanup Job

Classic SharePoint environments included a timer job designed to remove old workflow history entries and completed workflow tasks.

The purpose was to improve performance and prevent large workflow-related lists from affecting the SharePoint farm.

By default:

• Workflow history entries older than 60 days could be removed
• Completed workflow tasks could also be cleaned up automatically

This behaviour was particularly important in large environments where thousands of workflow instances were created daily.

What Happens After Workflow History Is Deleted?

Even after workflow history entries were removed, some workflow-related information could still remain elsewhere in SharePoint.

For example:

• Document approval status may still be visible
• Metadata fields may still indicate approval
• Audit logs may retain activity records
• Related list entries could still exist temporarily

However, the detailed step-by-step workflow history was often no longer available through the standard user interface.

Are Classic SharePoint Workflows Still Recommended?

In most Microsoft 365 environments today, the answer is no.

Microsoft has gradually deprecated older workflow technologies, including:

• SharePoint 2010 workflows
• SharePoint 2013 workflows
• Workflow Manager dependencies

Organisations using Microsoft 365 are encouraged to move toward:

• Power Automate
• Microsoft 365 approval workflows
• Modern SharePoint automation approaches

This is especially important because older workflow platforms may no longer receive feature updates and may have limited long-term support.

Modern Alternatives: Power Automate

Today, Power Automate is the preferred workflow platform for SharePoint and Microsoft 365.

With Power Automate, organisations can build workflows for:

• Document approvals
• Notifications
• Content publishing
• Employee onboarding
• Automated document processing
• Integration with Microsoft Teams and Outlook

Benefits of Power Automate

Compared to classic SharePoint workflows, Power Automate offers:

• Cloud-based automation
• Better Microsoft 365 integration
• Improved monitoring and analytics
• Flexible approval processes
• Mobile approvals
• Integration with hundreds of services

Power Automate also provides a clearer run history experience, allowing administrators and users to review workflow execution details directly within the Power Automate portal.

How to Track Workflow Activity in Modern Microsoft 365 Environments

Modern Microsoft 365 workflows use different tracking mechanisms compared to classic SharePoint workflow history lists.

Depending on the workflow design, history and auditing information may be stored in:

• Power Automate run history
• SharePoint lists
• Microsoft Purview Audit logs
• Dataverse
• Custom logging solutions
• Approval history records

Recommended Best Practices

If workflow history is important for compliance or auditing, consider:

Use Dedicated Logging Lists

Instead of relying solely on built-in workflow history, create dedicated SharePoint lists for:

• Approval decisions
• Timestamps
• Comments
• Workflow outcomes

Retain Approval Data Outside the Workflow

Important approval metadata should be stored directly on documents or records where possible.

Use Microsoft Purview Audit Logging

For enterprise governance scenarios, Microsoft Purview provides more reliable long-term auditing capabilities than legacy workflow history lists.

Monitor Power Automate Retention Policies

Power Automate run history retention may vary depending on licensing and environment settings.

Can You Still Extend Workflow History Retention?

In on-premises SharePoint Server environments, administrators can still configure workflow cleanup behaviour.

Historically, this involved:

• Adjusting workflow association properties
• Using PowerShell scripts
• Modifying workflow retention settings

However, these approaches primarily apply to legacy SharePoint Server deployments rather than SharePoint Online in Microsoft 365.

For modern cloud environments, it is generally better to design workflows with long-term logging and auditing requirements in mind from the beginning.

Conclusion

Workflow history remains an important part of document management and business process automation in SharePoint environments. However, the way workflow tracking works has changed significantly in Microsoft 365.

While classic SharePoint workflows relied on hidden workflow history lists and cleanup timer jobs, modern organisations should focus on Power Automate, Microsoft 365 auditing, and structured logging approaches for long-term workflow visibility.

When designing workflows today, it is important to think beyond temporary workflow history entries and build processes that support governance, auditing, and compliance requirements from the start.

About the Author

Oliver Wirkus is Senior Consultant at the IT consulting company Bridging IT GmbH in Mannheim/Germany. As a SharePoint expert and software architect he has long standing experience in conducting international projects. Customers from different industries like power suppliers, pharmaceutical and financial companies rely on his knowledge as a SharePoint expert. Oliver Wirkus has published several professional articles and is a renowned speaker at conferences.