Designing an effective Power Platform Tenant strategy

 

In today's landscape where AI and digital transformation is at the forefront, leveraging tools like Microsoft's Power Platform can revolutionize the way organizations operate. With its suite of low code  apps—Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, and Microsoft Copilot —powerful business insights, custom apps, automation, and AI-driven chatbots, AI agents are just a few clicks away. However, to truly maximize these low code tools, a robust tenant strategy is essential and the very foundation for success.

Why Tenant Strategy Matters

A well-structured tenant strategy ensures that your Power Platform environment is scalable, secure, and aligned with business objectives. The tenant strategy outlines the setup and management of an organization's environments, including considerations for security, data residency, compliance, and governance. Some of the things to consider are discussed below -

Key Considerations for Your Tenant Strategy

1. Environment Planning:

   • Development, Testing, and Production Environments: Separate these environments to ensure stability and security. This allows for rigorous testing before deploying solutions to production.

   • Sandboxes: Use sandbox environments for experimental development and to test new features without affecting production data.

2. Data Residency and Compliance:

• Ensure that your data remains within specified geographical boundaries to comply with local regulations. This is particularly important for organizations operating in multiple countries.

• Select the appropriate region for your tenant to optimize performance and meet data residency requirements. 

• Below is a Global multi-tenant for meeting Data residency requirements.

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3. Security and Governance: - The security and governance policies can be different to meet the local regulatory requirements.

   • Implement Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies to prevent unauthorized access and sharing of sensitive information. 

   • Define User Roles and Permissions meticulously to safeguard data and applications against misuse.

   • Monitor and manage user activities and usage patterns to detect and address potential security threats.

4. Scalability: Consider the implication of AI models for future growth planning. 

   • Plan for future growth by considering the scalability of your environment. Ensure that your tenant can accommodate increased workloads and data volumes as your organization expands.

   • Regularly review and adjust your environment settings to align with evolving business needs.

5. Cost Management: The focus on reducing operations costs will require a constant cost optimization and management approach. 

   • Keep track of the ongoing costs associated with your tenant, including licensing, storage, and premium features. Implement financial controls to avoid unexpected expenses.

Best Practices for a Successful Power Platform Implementation

• Regular Audits: Conduct frequent audits of your environments and costs to ensure compliance and identify areas for improvement.

• User Training: Empower your team with adequate training and resources to utilize the Power Platform effectively. Encourage team members to get certified and showcase their talents.

• Feedback Loops: Encourage users to provide feedback on their experiences and challenges to continuously refine your applications and business strategy.

In conclusion, an effective tenant strategy for the Power Platform isn't just about the initial requirements and setup—it's about creating a scalable, secure, and adaptable environment that can grow alongside your business. By focusing on these key areas, you can unlock the full potential of Power Platform and drive meaningful AI led digital transformation within your organization.

Let me know if this works for you. Thanks for reading.

Mihir Shah                            @mihircrm             365WithoutCode

10 Things to consider when Managing Enterprise Apps - Microsoft Dynamics 365 on Microsoft Cloud

 Once an enterprise application like Microsoft Dynamics 365 goes live within an organization there is lot of excitement. The project team is happy with the results of the efforts over the year/s. It is the day after going live that the operations team is faced with the post go-live challenges. There are lots of questions on how to support, operate, manage, adopt and scale the new Dynamics 365 application. Microsoft Dynamics 365 in an enterprise cloud environment can be very challenging. There could be multiple integrations with other systems within and outside the organization, compliance and security requirements, business enhancements needs and performance management. This requires planning and coordination with multiple teams. This blog series is about how to prepare and plan for managing of an enterprise Dynamics 365 app. Here are the top 10 things to consider - 

1. Governance (decision making) - There needs to be a governance team in place. There could be multiple operations support teams working on the system for example the application support and maintenance team, the infrastructure and security management team and the application enhancement team. There has to be a defined governance team that may consists of representatives from business, IT, Project and executive management. This helps the operations team to report any blockers, get the guidance and support for the system management. The governance teams meets on a monthly cadence and reviews the teams progress and challenges. They will discuss how to resolve the blockers, improve the operational performance and opportunities for enhancing the Dynamics 365 application.

2. Security and Access control - As the Dynamics 365 application usage increase so does the need to add new users and give them proper access. There could also be challenges with the existing users who may need to modify their security roles, teams and business unit. It is an ongoing challenge to manage the users access and application security which needs to be considered and managed. Assigning a role based user security template will make the access streamlined. 

The tasks for the security team is to regularly review and update user security roles, active directory teams and business units as user responsibilities change. Also remember to remove users and reassign licenses when the users are no longer required to access the app. Finally regularly audit user access logs on a monthly or quarterly basis to identify any unauthorized or suspicious activities. 

3. Data security and integrity - Having a reliable quality data is important for the adoption and success of the Dynamics 365 app. Users should be confident that the data that they rely on to make business decisions is safe and trustworthy. Implement a data governance practice to maintain data integrity and quality. Regularly set reviews, cleanse and maintain data for accuracy, completeness and consistency. Users should be provided training in proper data entry and maintenance standards. 

The data loss prevention rules should be in place to prevent the leakage of data. Sensitive data in the Dynamics 365 app should be protected and secured using field level security. Duplicate detection should be in place and active where needed. It is essential to set-up data validation and duplicate detection rules to prevent erroneous and unreliable duplicate data. Data lifecycle, archival and storage needs to be planned as the data size grows with complexity.

4. Application Performance Monitoring - The Dynamics 365 application and related infrastructure should be continuously monitored for any issues, bottlenecks or maintenance requirements. A mechanism should be in place to trigger alerts and auto create incident support tickets for any identified issues. The error logs, system logs and performance metrics should be reviewed for measuring the performance of the application. Users should be trained in identifying and reporting issues with proper documentation. 

Microsoft provides many options to monitor and manage Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. The Power Platform Admin Center has OOTB performance metrics that can be reviewed. Additionally Azure Monitor and Application Insights can be set-up to track and monitor the performance. Additionally you can even use Power Automate to trigger alerts and create incident support tickets.

5. Support Team  - Plan to have a dedicated multi-level support team. The teams can be set-up on a Tiered support level based on the incident complexity, severity and priority. Tier 1 and 2 support can be provided by the organization support helpdesk. Tier 3 support can be provided by the Application Manage Services Partner and Tier 4 support can be from Microsoft product support team. It is important to have the team trained on the business application and on supporting Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.

6. Product updates and upgrades - Microsoft provides 2 major updates annually for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Plan in advance to have the Dynamics 365 updates tested and implemented. 

Safe deployment of updates for Dynamics 365 by region

The business and IT needs will require regular enhancements of the Dynamics 365 application and supporting infrastructure. Ensure proper training of the support team as part of the enhancement of the Dynamics 365 application and infrastructure.

I hope this helps your organization in planning for the post go-live operations and management of the Dynamics 365 enterprise application on Microsoft cloud. Please stay tuned for my next blog where I will discuss the remaining 4 items to consider when managing Microsoft Dynamics 365 enterprise applications. Let me know your thoughts and thanks for reading.

@MihirCRM

365WithoutCode

 

 

Azure DevOps Pipelines with Power Platform - Part-1 The Benefits

In today's fast-paced world, organizations need secure, efficient and reliable tools to streamline their software development processes. Microsoft's Power Platform has emerged as a leading low-code development platform, empowering businesses to rapidly build custom applications, automate workflows, and analyze data. To further enhance productivity and collaboration, integrating Azure DevOps Pipelines with Power Platform offers a powerful combined solution. In this blog, I will explain the benefits of using Azure DevOps Pipelines in conjunction with the Power Platform to optimize your #PowerPlatform development projects.

1.            What is Azure DevOps Pipelines? Azure DevOps Pipelines is a cloud-based service that enables you to create, test, and deploy applications with speed and efficiency. It provides a robust set of tools for continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD), and release management. By incorporating Azure DevOps Pipelines into your Power Platform projects, you can automate build, test, and deployment processes, ensuring consistent and reliable software delivery.

ADO Pipeline monitoring in Power Apps

2.            Key Benefits of Azure DevOps Pipelines for Power Platform:

a. Seamless Integration: Azure DevOps Pipelines seamlessly integrates with Power Platform, offering a unified environment for managing the entire application lifecycle. From version control and code collaboration to automated deployment and monitoring, all development stages can be orchestrated within a single platform.

b. CI/CD Automation: By configuring continuous integration and continuous deployment pipelines, you can automate the process of building, testing, and deploying Power Platform solutions. This not only saves time but also reduces human errors, ensuring consistent quality throughout the development lifecycle.

c. Version Control and Collaboration: Azure DevOps Pipelines provides version control capabilities, allowing multiple developers to work on the same Power Platform solution concurrently. With features like branching, merging, and pull requests, you can manage code changes effectively and promote collaboration among team members.

d. Agile Project Management: Azure DevOps Pipelines integrates seamlessly with Azure Boards, enabling you to manage and track work items, backlog, sprints, and project progress effectively. This integration ensures that the development process aligns with Agile methodologies, facilitating transparent communication and enhanced project visibility.

e. Extensive Library of Tasks: Azure DevOps Pipelines offers an extensive library of pre-built tasks that can be easily customized and configured to meet the specific requirements of your Power Platform projects. From environment provisioning and solution packaging to testing and deployment, these tasks provide a comprehensive set of tools for efficient project management.

I hope this blog helps you understand the benefits of leveraging ADO Pipelines with #PowerPlatform. In my next blog I will write more about how to use ADO Pipelines and #PowerPlatform better together.

Thanks for reading

@mihircrm

365WithoutCode

Industry Cloud solutions using Dynamics 365 and Power Platform

As Cloud applications are now the global standard, there is a demand for building vertical industry specific cloud solutions that provide pre-built insights and intelligence, business processes and relevant experiences for the industry. Microsoft has introduced multiple Industry Cloud with Dynamics 365 solutions. This blog is to introduce the Industry Clouds solutions from Microsoft built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Currently there are 4 Industry Cloud solutions available and I am sure Microsoft is working on few more in the pipeline. They are as below.

• Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services
• Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare
• Microsoft Cloud for Retail
• Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit

Each Industry Cloud has the following - 

1. Industry specific functionality - For example the Financial Services Cloud consists of the following -

A unified Customer Profile (Customer 360) app, Customer Onboarding app, Loan Management app  Customer Engagement app etc.. The Industry apps provide tailored experiences for both the users and Customers. They help in better collaboration and decision making.

Microsoft Cloud for Financial Services 

2.  Each Industry Cloud includes specific components - Solutions, Apps, Templates and Services. It also includes data model built for the Industry Cloud. The data model can also be installed as a stand alone solution. For example The Retail Banking data model.

3. A Compliance program for Microsoft Cloud which enables the Clients to measure and control Risks and manage Industry compliance. This also includes specific architectural templates to help in designing and deploying Microsoft Cloud solutions for the specific Industry. An example for Financial Services Cloud Architectural template is shown below.

There is certain requirements that needs to be followed.

1. You need to have the specific licenses before you can deploy the Industry Clouds. 

2. There are pre-requisite that needs to be completed and after the Industry Cloud solutions are deployed there are also post deployment steps to be followed. 

3. Pricing - Each industry Cloud has a specific pricing template. The price for Financial Services Industry Cloud is approx $20k per Tenant. If you have 1000+ users this is a very reasonable (imho) price for the OOTB functionalities that the Industry Cloud provides.

Pricing for Financial Services Cloud

I would recommend to first do an internal analysis on the business processes and perform a proof of concept testing of the Industry Cloud solution. 

The Microsoft Industry Cloud are great examples of how to best utilize Microsoft cloud apps for your specific Industry. They come pre-built with the data model, AI apps and solutions that you can easily test and deploy. I am certain this will help accelerate your cloud transformation journey. 

In my future blogs I will explore some of the Industry Clouds and write more about it. Thank you for reading and let me know about your experience with the Microsoft Industry Cloud.

@mihircrm

365WithoutCode

Intelligent Automation using Power Automate as a Platform - Introduction

Globally as demand for products and services increases there is a need for automation. Intelligent Automation is the combination of multiple automation technologies infused with AI. Intelligent automation, also known as Cognitive automation can help organization to achieve gains in operations productivity and efficiency, enhance business outcomes and gain insights for making better business decisions. This blog introduces Intelligent Automation (IA) and how Microsoft Power Automate can be utilized as a platform for Intelligent Automation.

Enterprises today have challenges with the ability to provide service across multiple digital platforms. The customer expects better standard of services with faster turn around times. Some of the use cases of Intelligent Automation are described below -

1. Finance - AP process - In an organization the finance Accounts Payable specialist may need to automate the daily task of receive an email from Vendor with a attachment of invoice, printing and manually enter the invoice in ERP system. In addition to entering the invoice the IA can also review the invoice, compare against the Vendor PO and detect any anomaly to provide insights to the business.

2. Customer Service - Receive a customer request for warranty service repair. Search and find the customer agreement on warranty repair, confirm it is a valid request. Prepare and send an RMA and Shipping instructions email to the Customer. In addition the IA can also do analysis on the Items being returned to notify the business of any issues found with returns of the same item from multiple customers. 

3. HR - New Hire onboarding process - The enterprise HR department can automate the various steps in new hire on-boarding. They can also help in guiding the new hires in the process and getting them the needed IT authorizations and assets like laptops etc. IA can help in streamlining the onboarding so it is a great experience for the new hires.

There are many such business scenario where intelligent automation can be applied to automate the process and reduce the effort.  The main benefits of applying Intelligent Automation (IA) for enterprise organization are -

1. Improve productivity and reduce operational costs - IA when applied to automate manual tasks at scale the organization gets benefitted due to improved process efficiencies and / or productivity. This also reduces the operations costs. 

2. Consistent processes - Another benefit is the consistency of processes across business units and improved accuracy and less manual errors due to automation. 

Lead to Opportunity Sales process with Cloud workflow

2. Enhance Customer experience- Intelligent Automation can provide faster turnaround and consistent delivery improving the quality of products and services which ultimately leads to a better customer experience.

3. Compliance and Regulations - Intelligent Automation can help organizations in complying with Industry procedures and provide reporting for Government regulations. 

Intelligent Automation platform with Power Automate can use the Microsoft Low code Power Platform automation and AI technologies when applied to improve business operations -

1. Digital Process Automation (DPA) - This is using cloud workflows to automate and integrate business processes. Power Automate provides cloud based workflow automation capabilities with 400+ connectors to many SaaS applications including Dynamics 365 and Salesforce. 

2. Robotic Process Automation  (RPA) -  Also known as UI automation which helps organizations improve their manual processes by automating the back office tasks. For example this can be done by capturing the clicks on the desktop and automating the manual processing of data. Power Automate Desktop is the RPA tool that can help in automating legacy business processes. 

3. Business Process Automation (BPA) - This can be used for automating business workflows like a Lead to Opportunity to Sales process. This helps in managing a consistent business process throughout the organization. The steps in the process can be automated that helps in improving the process efficiency. The standardized process can also help in interactions and engagement within the Sales team.

4. AI - AI when added can become the decision engine for automation. AI can be in the form of machine learning or cognitive algorithms that can recognize process patterns and make inferences for business. They can also detect anomalies or provide prediction based on the process data. In Microsoft Power Automate we can use AI builder to automatically process forms and documents, detect and identify images, text analysis and much more. 

AI builder in Power Automate

5. Process Mining - Process Mining can help in understanding and identifying the business process bottlenecks and select processes that can benefit from automation. Microsoft Power Automate includes Process Advisor that can help organizations in gaining deeper insights and optimizing business processes.

The combination of the above Intelligent Automation technologies can help Enterprise organizations in accelerating their digital business transformation goals and improve business outcomes. Let me know if you have implemented Power Automate for Intelligent Automation. Thanks for reading.

@mihircrm

365WithoutCode 

Making your digital transformation a successful journey with an Enterprise App Adoption Strategy

 Many organizations have embarked on their digital transformation journey with new cloud native enterprise apps like Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Power Platform. They want to ensure that they are able to achieve the goals initially set for the new business app and also get a return on their investments. Planning and preparing a enterprise app adoption strategy is essential for the operational success and future of the business. 

The enterprise transformation journey may have started as a pilot project. In an agile driven world the pilot may be implemented in a particular country / region or for a department to test the results of implementing the new app. The successful adoption of the new app will determine the next steps in the journey for the eventual implementation in the enterprise. It is at this critical juncture that the adoption playbook needs to be run to ensure the success of the project. 

As organizations venture into new cloud native apps there are many challenges. 

1. Technological change - Cloud apps are new technologies and are constantly evolving. This was not the case earlier when the on premise legacy enterprise apps rarely had changes and had worked pretty much the same for the past 10-15 years. The new cloud apps will change periodically months and will need a constant learning culture for the business.

2. Business environment change - As the past 2 years have shown "business as usual" cannot be taken for granted. The business environment can change any time, many of us could be working from where ever and still supporting our customers. We need to be ready for future business environment changes. Successful adoptions of the new apps are necessary fir business to thrive in new digital world.  

3. Employees needs change and the enterprise needs to be agile to provide the support needed for the employees. Employees want proper guidance and nurturing in the new apps they have to use. They want to be trained and empowered for success. When organizations do not support their employees with the new tools and training needed, the digital transformation may not be a success.

The above are some of the factors that an Enterprise App Adoption Strategy is required. 

Microsoft has provided a Dynamics 365 Adoption guide that can help customers implementing Dynamics 365 to have a successful application adoption. The below pic shows some of the highlights in the Microsoft Dynamics 365 App adoption guide. (link) 

The Enterprise App Adoption Strategy should also change, be relevant and useful as future enhancements are made to the app.  The focus is on making sure the employees adopt and customers are engaged and the app is getting better business outcomes.  Hope you have an Enterprise App Adoption Strategy and do let me know your thoughts on it,

Thanks for reading. 

@mihircrm

365WithoutCode