We are looking into moving to use React 16 (16.3.2) in SharePoint Online out-of-the-box capabilities or initially with the modern pages. This change is however designed to be done in a way that it will not have any impact on your customizations, so if you have been using React 15 in your SharePoint Framework solutions, they will keep on working without any issues and there are no requirements for any changes on them. This means that we will be supporting on having both React 15 and React 16 components in the same page side-by-side.
This change is currently planned to start rolling out on 27th of November. As we want to ensure that the change does not impact your deployment, it will be rolled out carefully using the first “Targeted release for selected users” – option. This way you can test the possible impact on your customizations and report possible issues directly to Microsoft. We will be closely following the issue list for any findings and will change our rollout plans if needed.
How can I preview the React 16 for testing?
You can test React 16 impact for your customizations by using targeted release for selected users option in your tenant and then select those users who are responsible for testing the impact for your customizations. You can manage your tenant’s Release preferences from the Microsoft 365 admin center (aka tenant admin UI).
Where can I report possible issues?
You should be reporting any development related issues at the sp-dev-docs repository issue list. You can access this location easily with http://aka.ms/spdev-issues link.
Does this impact which version of Office UI Fabric I should be using?
No. You should still use Office UI Fabric React version 5.x (5.131.0 preferred) as version 6 requires other technical changes related to the build tools and TypeScript version. We will inform you of these changes as it is relevant.
Are there any known issues I should be looking?
If you have done page DOM manipulation, those could have an issue as React does not support the same elements to be changed with different versions. Notice that page DOM manipulation, in general, is not supported and should not be performed in modern SharePoint.
I’m not using React in my customizations, should I do something?
No. You are not impacted by this change.
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SharePoint Team, Microsoft – 16th of November 2018
