Securing Your Power Platform Apps: The Checklist We Follow

Good news to start with: with Power Platform, everything lives inside your Microsoft 365 tenant. Your data doesn't go off to a third-party vendor, you stay in control. That's a strong argument, especially for GDPR.

But it's not an automatic guarantee. A misconfigured app can expose more than you intended. Here's the checklist we run through every time.

The 4 things to lock down

1. Role-based permissions. Everyone gets access to strictly what they need. The salesperson sees their clients, not the payroll. It sounds obvious, yet it's the first vulnerability.
2. Data policies (DLP). You prevent internal data from leaving toward an unauthorized external service.
3. Traceability. Who did what, and when. Essential the day an incident happens.
4. Minimization. You collect only the data you need. Less data, less risk, and it's the spirit of GDPR.

The most common mistake: sharing too broadly

In 9 audits out of 10, we find the same flaw: an app shared with "everyone" because it was simpler at launch, or data accessible to a whole group when three people would have done. Security doesn't degrade all at once, it erodes through small shortcuts. An access review twice a year is enough to prevent this.

The right mindset

Microsoft 365 security is an excellent starting point, but it doesn't replace good design. Think about it from the start, not as an afterthought. And rest assured: a well-built app is far safer than a spreadsheet emailed around to half the company.

Key takeaways

• Your data stays in your tenant: an advantage, not a guarantee.
• Four pillars: role-based permissions, DLP, traceability, minimization.
• The most common mistake is sharing too broadly, out of convenience.
• Run an access review twice a year, and the new-hire test.