Cohesis Blog Post Image Showing A Phone and Logo of Microsoft Power Automate

End of life software: the risk nobody owns

On 31 August 2026, Microsoft removed the Power Automate mobile app from the app stores. Somewhere that week, an approval stopped arriving on someone’s phone and nobody could say why. The flows were fine. The notice had been published, with a date on it. That is not a technical failure. It is a governance failure, and end of life software keeps producing them because nobody in the business is watching for the notice.

Microsoft retired the Power Automate mobile app on 31 August 2026

Microsoft deprecated the Power Automate mobile app for iOS and Android, effective 31 August 2026. The app came off both stores and no longer receives updates or support. Everything the app was used for still exists, just somewhere else. The change sits on Microsoft’s list of important changes coming to Power Platform.

New installs are gone from the Apple App Store and Google Play

Anyone who did not already have the app cannot get it. The app is out of support, so it will not be fixed and it will not be updated again.

The flows kept running, the notifications did not

Automated, scheduled and instant cloud flows carried on normally. What stopped was the push notification to the retired app. Any flow that told a person something through that app now tells nobody, until someone changes it to notify through Teams or email instead.

Vendors give you notice, the question is who reads it

Microsoft published this deprecation before it took effect, gave a date, and named the alternatives. So when a business is caught out by end of life software, the gap is almost always internal, between the notice arriving and anyone reading it. Internal gaps are fixable.

Microsoft commits to at least 12 months' notice under its Modern Lifecycle Policy

Microsoft’s Modern Lifecycle Policy sets a minimum of 12 months’ notification before support ends where no successor product or service is offered. Free services and preview releases sit outside that commitment. Read it as a floor with exclusions, not a blanket guarantee across everything you run.

Retirement notices land in the Microsoft 365 message centre

Upcoming changes appear in the Microsoft 365 message centre, tagged by type, including Retirement. Major updates are communicated at least 30 days in advance where an action is required. Most admin roles can see the message centre, and a Message center reader role covers staff who need visibility and no other admin rights.

Why end of life software keeps catching businesses out

In our experience three things explain most of it, and none of them are technical. The notice arrives at an inbox with no owner, the person who understood the tool has gone, and the tool was never small enough to matter until it broke. For the wider exposure, see the Australian Signals Directorate’s executive guidance on managing the risks of legacy IT.

Nobody owns the list of things that can break

Notices go to a shared admin mailbox that several people can open and no single person is accountable for. Everyone assumes it is being read.

The person who built it has left

Automations are often built by one capable person who never documented them. When they leave, the flow stays, the knowledge does not, and nobody knows what depends on what.

Small tools sit outside the asset register

Asset registers track servers, laptops and the finance system. They rarely track a phone app carrying approvals for purchase orders. The things that fall over quietly are usually the things nobody wrote down.

What good looks like

Managing end of life software comes down to three ICT governance decisions, and a CEO can direct all three without understanding a single line of the underlying technology. Name someone accountable for vendor change notices, put known retirement dates on the roadmap, and widen the inventory to include the small tools. None of it needs a budget line. It is just unowned in most businesses.

Give vendor change notices a named owner

One person reads the message centre monthly, decides what matters, and reports what is coming. IT vendor management is the job, and it sits naturally with a vCIO, whether the role is internal or external. Accountability is the point. A rotating responsibility is the same as none.

Put retirement dates on the technology roadmap

A known end date is a planning input, not a surprise. Put it on the technology roadmap alongside the projects competing for the same budget and the same people. Twelve months’ notice is generous if you spend it. It is worthless if you find out in month twelve. Sometimes the answer is to leave the tool alone for another year, and a roadmap is what tells you which it is.

Keep an inventory that includes the small things

If it carries an approval, a notification or a payment, it belongs on the list. We usually find the gap during an IT health check, in the form of an automation nobody can explain. Undocumented automation is end of life software you have not found yet.

What to do about the Power Automate change specifically

If approvals used to arrive on phones, you have two real options. Move approvals into the Approvals app in Teams, which gives approvers a full mobile experience and needs a Teams administrator to enable it. Or leave the flows where they are and change how people are told. How approvers get notified already covers Outlook email, Teams adaptive cards and the Power Automate action center. Flow management itself moves to the Power Automate portal at make.powerautomate.com, which works in a mobile browser.

Either option means touching live flows that people rely on. If you would rather not test that on a Monday morning, talk to our Microsoft 365 team at Agendis.

The cost of finding out late

An approval that sits unanswered for a week is not an IT problem. It is a supplier order not placed, a new starter without system access, an invoice held past terms. Nobody logs a ticket, because nothing looks broken. You find out when a customer asks why. That delay is the argument for governance, and the hour it takes to name an owner is the cheapest part of it. Not sure what is running unowned in your business? Start with what an IT health check covers, then talk to us about who reads the notices from here.

Frequently asked questions

The vendor stops supporting, updating and distributing the product. It often keeps working, but you run it at your own risk, with no fixes and no support.
End of support means the vendor stops issuing fixes and updates, while the product may still be distributed. End of life means it is withdrawn as well. Either way, you are running something unsupported.
A minimum of 12 months under the Modern Lifecycle Policy, where no successor product or service is offered. Free services and preview releases are excluded from that commitment.
In the Microsoft 365 message centre. Most admin roles can see it, and a Message center reader role exists for staff who need visibility without any other admin rights.
No. Automated, scheduled and instant cloud flows kept running. The change hit the phone app and the notifications sent to it, not the automation itself.
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Simon Cohen

Written by Simon Cohen, Founder, Cohesis. Simon has over two decades of experience working with Australian SMEs and local government organisations on technology strategy, governance, and implementation.

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