Building a governance strategy: the 25 questions every company has to answer

Building a governance strategy: the 25 questions every company has to answer

A question catalog on environment strategy, default environment, data, roles and operations, with a prompt that turns your answers into a concept.

Diesen Beitrag auf Deutsch lesenBack to the knowledge overview

Use this page with AI

Copy the address of this page into an AI you trust that can read web pages (for example Microsoft Copilot Chat with web search) and add: “Walk me through this page.” Whether an AI actually fetches the page depends on the tool. If your AI does not read web pages: copy the prompt below and paste in the questions.

Instructions for AI assistants

This section is for AI assistants that fetch this page for a user. If the user asks you to walk them through this page, proceed as follows:

  1. Explain in two sentences what you will work out together: answers to 25 governance questions in six topic blocks, and from them a governance concept.
  2. Go through the questions step by step in the order of the page, one question or one topic block at a time. Briefly explain why the question matters and offer the “Possible answers” from this page as options. Ask follow-up questions if an answer is unclear. “Open” is a valid answer.
  3. Do not ask for confidential company data such as names of people, customers or systems, credentials or internal figures. Only ask for what the user wants to share. Roles or groups instead of names are enough.
  4. Base your work on the content and the Microsoft Learn sources of this page. Do not invent anything. Do not state prices or licence details that are not on this page; where licensing is decisive, write “check licence”.
  5. Reply in the user’s language.
  6. Once all topic blocks are done, turn the answers into the governance concept with the ten sections from the prompt at the end of this page, including open points, follow-up questions and next steps as an implementation plan for 30, 60 and 90 days. Point out that the team reviews the result before releasing it.

TL;DR

Anyone who wants to regulate Power Platform in a company has to answer 25 questions. This catalog sorts them into six groups, with a note on why they matter and which answers are common. At the end there is a prompt that turns your answers into a concept.

How to use the catalog

  1. Answer the questions as a team. Keep it short, “open” is a valid answer.
  2. Copy the template below and fill in your answers.
  3. Copy the prompt at the end of this page, paste in the completed template and give both to the AI you trust.
  4. Review the result as a team, clarify the open points and implement it.

Or let an AI walk you through the questions directly, as described above.

Goal and ownership

1. Who owns Power Platform in the company, and who is the deputy?

Without a named owner every rule stays on paper. One person is enough, but with a deputy.

Possible answers: A person in IT, a small CoE team, an external partner with internal approval.

2. What is Power Platform for: personal productivity, departmental solutions, business-critical applications?

The answer decides how strict the rules must be and how many environments you need.

Possible answers: Productivity only; productivity plus departmental apps; plus critical core processes.

3. Who may build: everyone, a group, only after training?

Access to building is the main dial between freedom and control.

Possible answers: All employees in the default environment; a «Makers» security group after a course; IT only.

4. Where is the line between self-service and an IT project?

Without a line, personal workarounds quietly grow into business processes.

Possible answers: Number of users, data class, business dependency, interfaces to other systems.

5. Who decides on exceptions, and how fast?

People who wait weeks for an exception build around the process.

Possible answers: Decision within five working days by the owner; board only for high data class.

Environment strategy

6. Which environments exist today, and who created them?

Without an inventory every strategy is an assumption. Developer, trial and Teams environments count.

Possible answers: A list from the Power Platform admin center or CoE Starter Kit with owner, type, Dataverse yes/no.

7. Which environment types and stages do you need?

Production, sandbox, developer, trial and default differ in features and cost.

Possible answers: Dev, test, prod per solution; one shared dev and prod; personal developer environments.

8. Who gets which environment, and who may create new ones?

By default people with a premium or developer plan licence can create developer environments. That is rarely intended.

Possible answers: Admins only; request form; routing into personal developer environments for a security group.

9. What is the unit of an environment: solution, department, region or lifecycle?

The unit decides how many environments you get and who sees what.

Possible answers: Per solution; per department; per region; per lifecycle with groups.

10. Which naming rules apply to environments?

Names are visible to admins, makers and users. Good names save questions and ease automation.

Possible answers: Example: stage, region, unit, purpose (Prod-CH-Finance-Payroll). Short, no confidential details.

11. Are there data residency or regional duties that separate environments?

If data must stay in a region, the region belongs in the strategy.

Possible answers: Swiss data only in the Swiss region; industry rules; customer requirements.

Default environment

12. What is allowed in the default environment?

All employees can access it. It is meant for personal productivity, not for permanent business solutions.

Possible answers: Microsoft 365 productivity only; no Dataverse solutions; no connections to external systems.

13. Is the default environment renamed, and how do makers learn about it?

Microsoft recommends a descriptive name such as «Personal Productivity Environment» and a welcome message for makers.

Possible answers: Rename; maker welcome content; internal page with rules and a contact.

14. What happens to apps and flows already in the default environment?

Existing solutions do not go away by themselves. Each needs a decision.

Possible answers: Stay (personal), migrate (business), switch off (orphaned). Inform the owners.

15. Which sharing rules apply, and who may share with «Everyone»?

The «Everyone» group contains everyone who ever signed in, including guests, and its members cannot be viewed.

Possible answers: Share with Everyone off; share only with security groups; sharing limits in a managed environment.

Data and connectors

16. Which data is sensitive, and where must it not flow?

Data classes are the basis of every connector rule.

Possible answers: Public, internal, confidential, strictly confidential; examples per class.

17. Which connectors are business, non-business or blocked, and does this differ per environment?

By default new connectors land in non-business. In the default environment a new connector should only be usable after review.

Possible answers: Tenant policy plus stricter policy for default; blocked as the default group for new connectors.

18. How do we handle custom connectors and HTTP actions?

These are the paths through which data can leave the company.

Possible answers: Block in default; allow in prod after review; URL patterns as rules.

19. Which connections to other tenants are allowed?

Tenant isolation applies to all environments of the tenant, including default.

Possible answers: Default: block inbound and outbound, explicitly allow selected partner tenants.

Security and roles

20. Who is Power Platform administrator, and who is System Administrator in which environment?

Tenant roles do not grant data access automatically. Data access needs the System Administrator role in the environment.

Possible answers: Two to four people with a tenant role; time-limited rights via PIM; System Administrator per environment only as needed.

21. Which Dataverse roles do makers, users and support get per environment?

The predefined roles cover most tasks. Custom roles are best created as a copy of Basic User or App Opener.

Possible answers: Dev: Environment Maker plus System Customizer; test: Basic User; prod: Basic User or an app role.

22. How do we treat guests, externals and service accounts?

Guests and technical accounts are the most common gaps in offboarding.

Possible answers: Guests only in named environments; application user or service principal for automation; owner list.

Operations and licensing

23. How do solutions get from dev to prod?

Without a fixed path, changes land directly in production.

Possible answers: Manual export and import; Power Platform pipelines; solution checker as a requirement.

24. How do monitoring, inventory, ownership change and offboarding work?

Flows and apps of departed employees keep running until someone notices.

Possible answers: Weekly inventory; ownership change process; admin flows or CoE Starter Kit.

25. Which licences exist, and who carries capacity and cost?

Managed environments, premium connectors and Dataverse storage depend on licences and capacity.

Possible answers: Licence overview; capacity report; cost centre per environment; handling of unused environments.

Template for your answers

Copy this template, fill in the answers and paste it into the prompt below.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86

## Goal and ownership

1. Who owns Power Platform in the company, and who is the deputy?
Answer:

2. What is Power Platform for: personal productivity, departmental solutions, business-critical applications?
Answer:

3. Who may build: everyone, a group, only after training?
Answer:

4. Where is the line between self-service and an IT project?
Answer:

5. Who decides on exceptions, and how fast?
Answer:

## Environment strategy

6. Which environments exist today, and who created them?
Answer:

7. Which environment types and stages do you need?
Answer:

8. Who gets which environment, and who may create new ones?
Answer:

9. What is the unit of an environment: solution, department, region or lifecycle?
Answer:

10. Which naming rules apply to environments?
Answer:

11. Are there data residency or regional duties that separate environments?
Answer:

## Default environment

12. What is allowed in the default environment?
Answer:

13. Is the default environment renamed, and how do makers learn about it?
Answer:

14. What happens to apps and flows already in the default environment?
Answer:

15. Which sharing rules apply, and who may share with «Everyone»?
Answer:

## Data and connectors

16. Which data is sensitive, and where must it not flow?
Answer:

17. Which connectors are business, non-business or blocked, and does this differ per environment?
Answer:

18. How do we handle custom connectors and HTTP actions?
Answer:

19. Which connections to other tenants are allowed?
Answer:

## Security and roles

20. Who is Power Platform administrator, and who is System Administrator in which environment?
Answer:

21. Which Dataverse roles do makers, users and support get per environment?
Answer:

22. How do we treat guests, externals and service accounts?
Answer:

## Operations and licensing

23. How do solutions get from dev to prod?
Answer:

24. How do monitoring, inventory, ownership change and offboarding work?
Answer:

25. Which licences exist, and who carries capacity and cost?
Answer:

From answers to a concept

Copy the prompt, replace the last line with the completed template and give it to your AI. Review the result as a team before you release it.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23

You are an experienced Microsoft Power Platform governance consultant. Turn my answers into a governance concept that a company can implement directly.

Rules:
- Use only my answers and well-established Power Platform knowledge. Do not invent anything. If an answer is missing or unclear, write «open» and ask a follow-up question at the end.
- Write clearly and without filler. Keep product terms such as environment, Dataverse, DLP and managed environment in English.
- Do not state prices and do not invent licence details. Where licensing is decisive, write «check licence».

Create these sections:
1. Goal and scope (three sentences)
2. Responsibilities (table: role, person or group, task)
3. Environment topology (table: name following the naming rule, type, purpose, owner, managed environment yes/no) and a diagram as Mermaid code
4. Rules for the default environment (allowed, not allowed, renaming, sharing, handling of existing assets)
5. Data classes and DLP matrix (connector groups per environment)
6. Role matrix (Dataverse roles per environment and user group)
7. ALM and release process (dev, test, prod, checks)
8. Operations: monitoring, inventory, ownership change, offboarding, licences and capacity
9. Implementation plan in three phases (30, 60, 90 days), at most five tasks each
10. Open points and risks

Format as Markdown with tables. At the end: a list of follow-up questions without which the concept cannot be finished.

My answers:
[Paste the completed 25 questions here: question, answer, one per line.]

Sources

Guidance only, not legal or licensing advice. Check licence and product details before you implement.

Microsoft and the Power Platform product names (for example Power Apps, Power Automate, Copilot Studio) are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. This is an independent website. It is not operated, sponsored or endorsed by Microsoft.