You may have seen the message in the Message Center or in the App Catalog about the demise of SharePoint Add-ins in 2026. The upcoming version 3.0 of PointFire 365 will retire its own add-in at the same time as it brings in the new look.
Currently, PointFire 365 has two apps, both of which must be added to the site, named PointFire 365 and PointFire 365 Modern. In rough terms, PointFire 365 handles classic pages and pages in classic mode, while PointFire 365 handles modern pages. To use Microsoft’s terminology, “PointFire 365” is an add-in and “PointFire 365 modern” is an app. To avoid redundant code, the two apps (formally an app and an add-in) work hand in hand.
In recent years, SPFx has added a lot of functionality that it was missing, to the point that it is now possible to put all the functionality into a single app. The project for doing this started long before the Microsoft announcement.
Another aspect of this new version is changing a lot of the popup and configuration page from full pages as they mostly are now, to panels on the right of the page, as you often see in modern apps and as you have doubtless seen while editing modern pages. As it happens, doing popups and pages is something that is difficult to do in a modern app and we were planning to do away with those anyway. Doing the architecture change and the UI change at the same time makes sense.
Version 2.7 of PointFire 365 is the last one where the classic app is mandatory. Version 3.0 will still have both the classic and the modern app, but the classic app will not have much functionality other than helping with the transition for users who are used to the current apps. This will happen this summer 2024, long before Microsoft’s 2026 deadline, so the impact on existing users will be minimal.