Setting Up a Power Platform Environment Strategy

Summary

In this video, Brian Knight from Pragmatic Works discusses strategies for organizing environments in the Power Platform. He explains the importance of environments for IT administrators, the types of environments available, and how to manage them effectively. Knight emphasizes the need to restrict and monitor the default environment, suggesting renaming it to 'Personal Productivity' and implementing data loss prevention policies. He also recommends setting up personal developer environments and shared dev/test/prod environments, with a focus on security and proper application lifecycle management.

Takeaways

• 🌐 The Power Platform can be overwhelming for IT administrators due to its democratizing nature, allowing anyone to build applications, bots, and automations.
• 🏞️ Environments in the Power Platform are collections that include apps, users, chatbots, flows, and Power BI reports, serving to organize these elements.
• 🔢 There are up to seven types of environments, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, including a default environment provided by Microsoft.
• 🛠️ The production environment is for live use, while the sandbox is for development, allowing for easier building, wiping, and loading.
• 🚫 Trial environments do not affect a tenant's capacity but each environment consumes a gig of space against Dataverse capacity.
• 👷‍♂️ Administrators can restrict user access to environment creation and require approval through the admin center to prevent a disparate system.
• 🔒 The default environment is unique in that all Power Apps makers have rights to it, making it suitable for personal productivity rather than mission-critical applications.
• 🛡️ Data loss prevention policies can be applied to the default environment to restrict the use of certain connectors and ensure security.
• 🔄 A recommended strategy includes renaming the default environment to 'Personal Productivity' and setting up data loss prevention policies for better management.
• 📈 For larger organizations, having separate environments for development, testing, and production may be beneficial, especially for mission-critical applications.
• 🛠️ The Center of Excellence (COE) toolkit is a valuable resource for IT administrators to monitor and manage environments, connectors, and app licenses.

Q & A

What is the main topic of Brian Knight's video?

The main topic of Brian Knight's video is discussing how to build an effective strategy for laying out environments in an organization using the Power Platform.

Why might the Power Platform feel daunting for IT administrators?

The Power Platform can feel daunting for IT administrators because it allows anyone to build applications, chatbots, and automations, which can lead to a chaotic and uncontrolled environment.

What are environments in the context of the Power Platform?

Environments in the Power Platform are collections that include apps, users, chatbots, flows, and Power BI reports, which help manage and organize these elements within an organization.

How many types of environments can an organization have?

An organization can have up to seven types of environments, each with its own specific use and purpose.

What is the purpose of the default environment in the Power Platform?

The default environment is meant for personal productivity, allowing users with Power Apps licenses to build applications that are not necessarily mission-critical and are not typically supported by IT.

What is a sandbox environment in the Power Platform?

A sandbox environment is used for development purposes, where developers can build, test, and reset without affecting the production environment.

Why are trial environments not counted against a tenant's capacity?

Trial environments do not count against a tenant's capacity because they are temporary and meant for evaluation purposes, and they automatically expire after 30 days.

How can administrators prevent users from creating disparate environments?

Administrators can restrict who can create new environments, require users to request access to build out an environment, and implement data loss prevention policies through the admin center.

What is the recommended strategy for dealing with the default environment?

The recommended strategy includes renaming the default environment to 'Personal Productivity', limiting the number of connectors, and implementing data loss prevention policies to control the use of certain connectors.

What is the purpose of the Center of Excellence (COE) toolkit in managing environments?

The COE toolkit helps IT administrators consolidate and monitor all environments, control the use of connectors, and manage access to environments in a centralized manner.

How can administrators ensure that environments are used efficiently and effectively?

Administrators can set up security groups, communicate the purpose of each environment, establish data loss prevention policies, and use the COE toolkit to monitor and manage environments.