Pre-Requisite Questions for Power Platform

I was with a client this week and we were discussing the Power Platform and identifying potential projects that would be both beneficial to the business and that would demonstrate the power of the platform.

Finding the scenarios to automate was not a challenge.  The primary challenge that we identified was preparing the organisation and the production tenant so that Power Apps environments could be used for development, testing and eventual use in production.

The following are some key points that we are addressing with the client to ensure that they are ready.

Users and Identity

• Are all users of the application able to use Azure Active Directory as an authentication mechanism?
• Will all users of the application have appropriate licenses allocated?
• Is MFA in use?
  • If it isn’t now, will it be introduced in the future?
  • Will there be any policies in place to exclude accounts from MFA?

Devices and Browsers

• Will users be using their own devices?
• Will users be using laptops, tablets or phones, or all three?
• What browsers will users be using?
• What is the minimum resolution for each format of device?

Roles

• Who is responsible for the administration of the Office 365 tenant?
• Who will be responsible for the Power Apps environments?
• Will Power Apps environments have administration rights delegated?
  • And if so, to whom?

Firewalls and Security

• Are there any restrictions to access cloud services?
• What is the process foradding exclusions if they are required?
• If ADFS is in use, is it available outside of the corporate network?

Citizen Developers

• Is the organisation planning to support citizen developers?
  • If so,
    • Will a community of champions be developed?
    • Will Office 365 Learning Pathways be deployed to support learning?
  • If not,
    • Will users have their licences for Power Apps and Power Automate revoked?
    • What will happen with any existing artefacts that users may have already created?

Power Apps Environments

• Is there a strategy in place for defining the usage of Power Apps environments?
  • If not, what is the process for defining and approving a strategy
• Will the Centre of Excellence solution be implemented?
• What is the process for defining and agreeing the Data Loss Prevention policies for the environments?
• Does the team that will support the Power Apps environments need training?

Licencing

• What is the corporate approach to licencing for Power Platform?
• Are users allowed self-service licence purchases?
  • If not, has this been disabled?
• Who will be allowed to make and who will be allowed to use?

Governance

• What will the policy be for configuration changes going to a Change Board?
• If DEV and TEST Power Apps environments are in a PROD tenant, what is the policy for changes going to a Change Board?
• What is the process for approving the use of data gateways to on-premises content?
  • Will these be permitted in non-PROD tenants
  • Will they be permitted in non-PROD Power Apps environments?

Backup and Recovery

• Are the out of the box capabilities understood?
• Is there a requirement for a more advanced capability?
  • Is this required for specific applications that will be built on the Power Platform or for all applications?

Monitoring

• Who is monitoring the environments for errors and failures?
• Is it only certain Power Apps environments that will be monitored?